Hours of communion

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EDWIN H.'CHAPIN.

BOSTON:

A. TOMPKINS AND B. B. MUSSEY.

1848.

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Entered according to act of Confess, in the year 1844,

BY ABEL TOMPKINS,

In the Clerk'a Office of the District Court of MassachusetU.

Stereotype i1 by
GEORGE A. CURTIS,

I NEW KKaLAllD TTPS AND 8TXRBOTTFS rODKDRT.

PREFACE

This little work, it is hardly necessary to say,
is entirely practical in its character. The author
humbly hopes that it may be an agent, to some
extent, in inducing that spiritual culUire, that
growth in individual goodness, which is the great
end of all preaching, and the chief result of reli-
gion. What is meant by its title, " Hours of Ck)m-
munion," he has explained more specifically in the
last chapter. It indicates that self-communion, and
that communion with Christ, which are so essen-
tial to the formation of a truly religious character.
That this is a great object, nay the greatest of ob-
jects for which mortals can strive, no serious-
minded person will doubt. To this end it seems pro-
per that, in the midst of this busy life, there should
be seasons of thought and devotion — times set apart

for reflection upon topics which pertain to our
highest welfare, to Christ and to God. At such
times, this little book may be near when there are
not better and more elaborate works of a practical
religious character at hand ; and may discharge a
good office in suggesting thought and leading the
mind out into a profitable train of reflection. Es-
pecially is it deemed appropriate for those seasons
which may precede or follow the administration
of the Lord's Supper. The author is not satisfied
with the brief season which is allotted to that
ordinance in our churches. He deems that a fore-
noon, or afternoon, should be devoted to it, and
that it should be substituted for the regular public
service of that portion of the Sabbath. Then there
would be lime for thought, for suggestion, and if
the heart should muse until the fire burn, for
speech and for conference upon those themes
which pertain to that celebration of the life and
death of our Saviour. But we have here no space
to discuss the propriety of this method. Suffice it
to say, that we can have such seasons of thought
and communion at home before we enter upon the

public service, or after we have left it, and it was
deemed that at such seasons this little work might
be useful.

Of course the author does not expect that he has
imparted anything very new, much less exhausted
or even touched upon all the topics appropriate
to such a work. Neither does he think that a
lack of such works makes this little book neces-
sary But it may be in the way when other books
of ihe same kind are not, and do its share of good;
and it may suggest more and greater thoughts than
it expresses. There is no special connection be-
tween the chapters. The book is fragmentary and
indeed desultory.* But may it do something for
God's glory aad for human welfare! May his
blessing rest upon it, and go with it !

K H. C.

Chaklestown, Nov. 18, 1844.

• It is proper to say that one article — "The Cross of
Christ," has been published before, in a religious newspa«
per. But It was not deemed improper to insert it here.

CONTENTS.

An Argument for Church Membership, . . 9
The Lord's Supper considered as a Memorial, 30
Our Saviour's Prayer of Forgiveness, . . 43

The Crown of Thorns, 55

Christ v?ilhin us, 69

The Cross of Christ, '. . 80

Religion founded in Character, .... 94

The Great Exemplar, 106

Thoughtfulness and Meditation, . . .118
Christ after the Resurrection, . . . 130
Christ's Abiding Presence Invoked, . . 141
Hours of Communion, 153

AN ARGUMENT FOR CHURCH-
MEMBERSHIP.

"And he is the head of the body, the church."
Colossians i. 18.

Cheist "is the head of the body, the
Church " — who, then, are the members ? All
who draw life from him— who are spiritually
united with him. Union between the head,
the body, and the members, is of itself of no
worth, if there be not life. Indeed, as all
sympathy and correspondence are dead with-
out it, there is, in fact, no union. Christ
may be said to be the head of the body, the
Church, not merely because of his preemi-
nence, but because he is the source of vital-
ity. That vitality is the essential condition^
as well as bond of union. The dead body
and the living body differ in this respect — the
one has life, a spiritual principle of commun-

10 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

ion, running all through its members, and
connecting them sympathetically together —
the other has equally fair proportions and
harmony of organization, but it lacks the
life, the spiritual principle of communion and
sympathy. The great essentials of church-
membership, then, are life and communion
with Christ. If these be secured, if these be
cherished, it is a secondary matter what
church we belong to — or whether we belong
to any church. Inwardly, spiritually, we be-
long to the Catholic Church, the Church
Universal, of which ^oorf men, of all creeds,
are members — the only true church — the
church that shall endure when all human
organizations have been dissolved — when
earthly temples shall be no more needed —
when the imperfect union of sense shall be
lost in the full discernment of the spirit, and
we shall commune more directly with the
Father.

We say, then, if this life and communion
may be secured, the organization to which
we belong is a secondary matter. We shall
not broach the controversy whether these can
be secured without some organization, but

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 11

proceed to say — that they may be best secured
in that way. There is such a body as the
Church of Christ. Its members have al-
ready been specified as consisting of all good
and Christian men and women — those who
possess the disposition of Jesus — which they
only can by communion with him — that is,
by sympathy with his spirit, by imitating the
goodness which he exhibited. Those, who
live from the Christian Ideal, who make
Christ's law — by him both spoken and lived
— their supreme standard ; these form the
Church of Christ. It is, essentially, a spir-
itaal distinction and privilege.

But how are this distinction and privilege
to be obtained ? We answer — by the use of
means, by material agents, by ordinances.
Men are prone to two extremes — a rigid for-
malism, and an abstract spiritualism. Nei-
ther position is right. We are not all matter.
We are not all spirit. Matter and spirit, so
far as they are available to us, exist togeth-
er, act and re-act upon one another ; nay,
who shall draw the line of separation be-
tween them? Spirit is never manifest to us
without matter — there is no matter in which

12 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

spirit cannot be traced. Nay, if it should be
true even that matter is only a form of spirit,
yet spirit, for its manifestations and for its
efficacy, is dependent upon matter. To what
conclusion does this course of argument lead,
then ? To this — that in order to be members
of the spiritual, the true Church of Christ,
we must seek the distinction and the privi-
lege of membership by material agents — by
forms and ordinances. Not that these forms
and ordinances need be in every case alike ;
and this seems to be one error in such church
establishments as claim the exclusive privi-
lege of communion with Christ, and make it
dependent upon peculiar forms. But thus
much may be safely said — that we cannot be
members of the Church of Christ by spirit-
ual action exclusively. By inward senti-
ment and musings, by sp- ritual ecstasy, by
rapt absorptions of soul, by these exercises
alone we cannot have full evidence of disci-
pleship. If we have the true spiritual life
within, the genuine evidence of church-mem-
bership, we must, we will exhibit it in deeds
— in outward acts. Moreover, our affections
are excited and deepened by external things ;

HOUKS OF COMMUNION. 13

we acquire new motives from outward cir-
cumstances.

But if we thus admit the efficacy and the
necessity of externals, why not admit the
efficacy and necessity of the church organ-
ization ? It gives us a form to act through,
and it re-acts upon us. We may have the
soul of discipleship, but we must also have a
body — even the outward and visible church.
We have within us good sentiments and
right affections, but these need to be strength-
ened. The Christian may know that he has
the approval of God — he may be conscious
that he has within himself communion with
and life from Christ ; but he must remember
that he has to act outwardly as well as m-
wardly — that he has to secure his Master's
honor, and build up his Master's kingdom,
not only in his own soul, but in the souls of
others. In order to this, a public and dis-
tinct confession of Christ seems to be neces-
sary. It needs, at least, that the world should
hear him say as much as this — " I am a dis-
ciple of Jesus Christ ! "

This confession of Christ is, in reality, the
g^eat object of church-membership. Each

14 HOURS OP COMMUNION.

one who joins the church, enrolls himself, or
herself, as a disciple of Jesus — puts on his
badge, as it were — becomes distinctly marked
as his servant. The world is edified by this
distinct confession of Christ, Jesus is made
known among men, declared to be worthy
and true, and the advancement of his king-
dom is openly and specifically labored for.
On the other hand, mere spiritual member-
ship— that which is sanctioned within the
soul, and of which none can take cognizance
but God and the individual — does not give
confession of Christ, open and distinct — a
confession which honors him and attracts the
honor of the world.

But not only has this public confession a
relative influence — it has a personal eflftcacy.
Every one knows how much force a resolu-
tion acquires by some outward form — how it
deepens and stamps the sentiment in the
bosom. When we make a resolution in the
face of the world, we feel that the eyes of all
men are upon us, and the fact that those will
know our faithfulness, or failure, gives us a
strong desire to maintain our character for
consistency, if nothing more. But the reso-

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 15

lution that we make in secret, we may break
openly, and the world not know that we ever
made it. We do not say that the secret reso-
lution is not just as binding, but this is its
natural operation. And when we have taken
an avowed stand, we become more identified
with our resolution ; it comes nearer to us,
and our sympathies are enlisted in it. The
temperate man feels and does more for Tem-
perance, benefits himself and the world more,
when he takes a pledge, and becomes an
open and avowed soldier of the cause. So
with the Christian. The act of joining the
outward, organized church, is a peculiar con-
fession of Christ — a public resolution to fol-
low him — and it has all the force and all the
efiicacy of such confession and resolution.

But not only this — as we are affected by
external things — as the inward draws life
from the outward — so the ordinances of the
church operate upon the affections and the
motives, with a holy and elevating influence.
We cannot be entirely independent of forms
while in this world — they have a quick and
subtle communication with the soul, and we
grow better and more mighty because of them.

16 HOUHS OF COMMUNION.

There is one other reason why we may
best secure life and communion with Christ
by joining the visible church, though it is
comprehended in what has just been said
about public resolutions. By that act of
joining the church we feel more obligated to
lead religious lives. It is not said that we
are more obligated, but that we feel so ; and
we are not disposed to weaken that sense of
obligation. Anything that causes us to real-
ize more our responsibility and our duty, any-
thing that endues these with more binding
sanctions, is of great benefit — for we are too
prone to forget and to neglect them.

Thus, then, while we acknowledge that the
true seal of church-membership is g-oodness,
and that all true Christians belong to the
church, whatever their name or creed, and
whether they have joined any outward asso-
ciation or not, still we affirm that that good-
ness, that life and communion which make
good men, can best be secured by a formal
membership with the visible church — the
body of which Christ is the head.

But so far we have only considered the ar-
guments or scruples of comparatively a few,

HOURS OP COMMUNION. 17

who object to joining the church— in many
instances, no doubt, sincere and spiritually-
refined men and women, who maintain this
position, in fact, from an excessive spiritual-
ity. But we are now to consider two or
three objections which more commonly pre-
vail, and hinder many from becoming church
members.

And the first arises from a feeling no bet-
ter, nor higher, than shame. It is, we fear,
a fact, and a melancholy one it is, that some
are ashamed to become church-members.
They mingle in the world, and they hear a
good deal said lightly about religion — they
hear a good deal of jesting about Christian
professors, about piety, and seriousness. They
think it betokens a weakness to become a
church-member. There is a fear of what the
world may do or say, and it fills them with
shame and dislike. But suffer me to ask —
of what should they be ashamed ? Of pro-
fessing to believe in Jesus Christ? No:
they will avow this. They are not infidels.
Of what, then ? Of resolving to become a
disciple of his — to strive to grow like him —
for this we understand to be the great object

18 HOURS OP COMMUNION.

of church-membership — and are they asham-
ed of this ? When they have been guilty of
a wrong, they are not ashamed to say they
are sorry for it. When they have been fet-
tered by any vice, they are not ashamed to
rise up and break from it, and say, " We will
own its sway no more ! " Of these things
they are proud, rather — they feel them to be
glorious and triumphant. Why, then, be
ashamed to say — " We are imperfect crea-
tures— we see in Christ a model of perfec-
tion— we are resolved to take him for our pat-
tern, to imitate and become like him. We
have done wrong — we will endeavor to aban-
don the evil ; we would be good — we will
choose and endeavor to abide by the right."
What weakness is there in this ? " But we
dislike to be thought serious." Why so?
Is not life serious ? Is not death serious 7
Are there not a thousand occurrences of life
that are serious ? If it is a serious thing to
live in this world — to battle with temptation
— to commit sin ; it is a serious thing to ab-
sorb all thought in things of time and sense.
These things are all serious. Why, then,
ashamed to be thought serious? Not

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 19

gloomy, not fanatical, not fearful — but seri-
ous. Every true man is serious. To be
thoughtful is to be serious. He or she who
is not serious, is thoughtless. What is there
in becoming a church-member that you are
ashamed of? Ashamed of following the
best Pattern of Goodness ? Ashamed of
seeking for real, substantial joy ? Of drink-
ing at the spring of all true peace and conso-
lation ? Put by such shame ! It is cowardly,
and thoughtless, and ungrateful.

But there is another objection to joining the
church. " If we become members of the church
we must sacrifice many pleasures, and put by
many enjoyments." To what does this ob-
jection amount ? It is virtually saying this
— that in order to secure virtue, and true joy,
and peace, we must thrust aside all that in-
terferes. For, unless we mean that by giv-
ing up these pleasures, we sacrifice some-
thing sinful, something hurtful, we cannot
see that the objection has any foundation.
Church-members ought to forego sinful pur-
suits. True. But who is there that ought
not to forego them ? Is a sin any less a sin
out of the church than in it? Is this the

20 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

law — that we may sin so long as we do not
protest against our sins, hut the moment we
do protest, then sin becomes sinful ? What
strange ideas seem to prevail upon this
point ! " Such a course is well enough for
you, and for me, but it will not do for our
neighbor." Why? "Because he is a
church-member ! " But is the course wrong ?
" Yes, it is wrong, but then we are not
church-members, and our neighbor is."
But because you are not a church-member,
have 5'ou license to do wrong? Is this 3'our
excuse for doing wrong — that you are not a
church-member ? If so it is a very vulnera-
ble excuse. Now we will not deny that it
looks more inconsistent for church-members
to do wrong — nay, to the sin of the bad act
may in this case be added the sin of incon-
sistency— but is it, at bottom, any less a bad
act whoever does it ? To waive all nice
casuistry upon this subject, are you excused
for ^vTong doing because you are not a
church-member? "I will not join the
church, because if I do I must leave off some
sins." Is this, at the bottom, j-our excuse?
But if you do not join the church, must you

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 21

not leave off these sins ? What is the an-
swer? So much, then, have we to say in
reply to this objection, provided the pleasure
or amusement referred to is sinful.

But if it is not sinful — if it does not inter-
fere with our growth in goodness — wky must
we leave it olT because we join the church ?
I cannot help the convictions of others, but
this I feel — that Religion is rich with glad
influences ; for it is a principle infinitely
varied — it presides over the different phases
of human life, and sanctions and hallows
them all. Pteligiou forbids folly, forbids ex-
cess, forbids an empty, frivolous living — and
who wishes to live so? Religion bids us
have a time for all things, and wisely live for
a higher and purer destiny than any of this
earth. It bids us not be profane, or indolent,
or licentious, or wasteful. Who wishes to
be so ? But it does not strip us of one true
joy. It forbids not one innocent amusement.
Look up at the sky. Is not an expression
of cheerfulness and joy there, blended with
purity ? Look abroad upon the earth — is not
nature glad ? Has not God dimpled the val-
leys into smiles, and thrown sunlight over

22 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

the waters, and crowned the hills with re-
joicing? It is true, life has many and grave
duties — different spheres in life have differ-
ent measures of duty — and the true con-
science must always consult circumstances
without and the great law within ; but plea-
sure, amusement — Religion forbids them not
— it gives them a more genuine and delight-
ful ministry than anything else can. But
not only this. It sows within us the seeds
of an undying joy that fails not when out-
ward means of happiness fail — when animal
spirits grow feeble and low, when sorrows
darken and cares appall. This it gives us,
shedding abroad a holy serenity in the heart,
and imparting a calm lustre to the brow. It
is a principle of truth, and therefore it allows
us nothing that is treacherous and wrong;
but all that makes happy, and grateful, and
good, it opens for us in abundant measure.
It reveals new sources of happiness. It
makes the spire of grass and the star beau-
tiful ministers of delight. And do we think
that we must sacrifice pleasure by choos-
ing Religion as our guide and our end? It
is a sad mistake, as they well know who

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 23

cling to the chalice of sin, and drink the
bitterness of its dregs. Do not hesitate to
follow Christ, because you think your plea-
sures will be less. Every real source of en-
joyment, every truly pleasant thing, it sanc-
tions, and deprives us only of the evil —
and even for this it far more than repays us.
It may check a boisterous folly, but it be-
stows enduring peace of mind. It may for-
bid licentious excess, but it enkindles a glo-
rious hope. It may put back the hand that
reaches out after clustering deceits, but it
lights the pale cold face with a smile in
death. Nothing that is lawful now, will be
unlawful when you join the Church of
Christ. No true pleasure now will be less a
pleasure then — it will be deeper and more
beneficial.

One more objection — " I am not good
enough to jom the church." This feeling is
to be respected, but is it not a mistaken one ?
They who are sensible of their unworthiness,
at least evince humility, and where there is
humility there is a soil for much good seed.
But if not being good enough is made a plea
for not growing better — if, moreover, it is a

24 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

plea that is continually urged, from year to
year, with no effort to grow better — then it
would seem as if the plea was made not so
much from humility as unwillingness — not
as an apology for imperfect action, but as an
excuse for no action at all. You are not
good enough to join the church? When do
you propose to be ? Or do you mean to hold
this position as a constant excuse ? If you
are not good enough, why are you not ? In
this case you have two evils to remedj^ — your
incapacity for joining the church, and your neg-
lect to join it. We are arguing now on your
own ground, and admitting that you are not
good enough. Do you not see that this is no
excuse ? If you are not good enough, why
not make effort to be good enough? It is
in your power to remove this obstacle. Your
excuse for not joining the church, itself needs
an excuse.

But now we would ask— what standard do
you propose as the point of perfection which
will fit you for joining the church? How
good must you be, before you can enroll
yourself as a member of that body of which
Christ i»the head? Do you feel that before

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 25

you can join you must be perfect 7 This is
a mistake. It is precisely because you are
imperfect that you should become a disciple
of the Great Teacher. By joining the church
we do not signify that we are perfect, but
that we are imperfect, and feel our need of
communion with him who is the Source
of life and goodness to all who obey and
strive to imitate him. You enter the church
that you may become good — that you may
grow better. You enter the assembly of
those who begin on earth that progress which
ascends through the portals of this lower
church far into eternity. It is because you
are weak, and frail, and sinful, that you
should come, and gather around the table of
memorial, and draw nigh to the Saviour, and
imbibe his spirit, touching the hem of his
garment, leaning on his bosom, and growing
from glory to glory to be like him. Oh ! do
not plead that you are not good enough, as
an excuse for not joining the church. I urge
it, rather, as the most cogent reason why you
should join the church. It is too true that
many who enter the church do not grow bet-
ter, make its sacred profession a cloak for

'Zb HOURS OF COMMUNION.

sin, and take with unhallowed hands the ele-
ments of the communion ; hut this need not
weigh to keep you back. If they resist the
influences and appeals that bear upon them,
you need not. There are influences, there
are appeals that bear upon the professed dis-
ciple of Jesus, that will, if heeded, bless and
make pure. It is the sinful, the erring, the
tempted, that he calls to his arms, and bids
to his lessons of holiness and feasts of love.
Thus have we considered some of the rea-
sons for connecting ourselves with the visible
Church of Christ. I deemed it advisable so
to speak, in the commencement of this little
work, devoted as it is to those who are ac-
customed to reflect upon subjects of personal
spiritual interest, connected with commun-
ion with Christ. There is a great disparity
between the numbers of those who sit in the
seats of the sanctuary during the ordinary
services of the Sabbath, and those who re-
main and gather around the communion-
table. Why is this? Is it because of some of
the excuses which have now been examined?
Or is it because some cannot resolve to turn
and follow Christ? And vet that resolution

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 27

should be made. The great end of all our
preaching is not gained unless it is made.
The great end of attendance on the public
services of the sanctuary from Sabbath to
Sabbath is not gained unless it is made.
And if that resolution is formed, it should be
declared openly — it should be set as a seal
upon us, and become the main-spring of our
conduct. Child of business, of trial, of many
anxious cares— son— daughter of God— let not
this matter be unheeded. Weigh it well. Do
nothing with rashness, or irreverence. But
do as duty, as conscience bids ! And turn
not away, from time to time, from the table
of communion — but go and sit down thereat.
It will be a good thing to do so — to sit at the
feet of that Saviour whose life was purity
and whose spirit was love. It will be a good
thing, in youth's bright morning to write your
name as a follower of Christ — it will be to
you guidance and peace in the perplexed and
toilsome career of maturer life — it will be to
you an antepast of heaven when the light of
life goes down, and in its calm, pensive even-
ing you sit waiting for the morning of heaven.
Why turn from the communion-table 7 Its

28 HOUaS OF COilMUNION.

elements are not gloom and superstition —
they are the tokens of a love that wrought
its mission through sacrifice and tears, and
sealed its devotion with blood! Why turn
from the communion-tahle ? It is the place
where we meet to commemorate a Saviour's
deeds — to draw new life from his example —
and to depart with better hearts as from con-
versation with him. There are no shining
treasures here, no wreaths of fame, no sen-
sual delights. But here are influences that
breathe from better realities — the inspira-
tions of a lofty hope, the vision of a serene
faith. Why turn from the communion-table ?
Would you not be a follower of Christ — of
Christ, the good, the pure, the kind ? Would
you not be one among the members of his
church ? Behold ! they are a great number.
The good and the blessed of many ages — the
saints above and the saints below — the holy
and the happy. Like them, you may draw
from Jesus life, and truth, and power. Oh !
why turn from the communion-table? Be
present at its seasons of prayer and praise,
of peace and love, of meditation and resolu-
tion, bear openly the name of Christ ia re-

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 29

membrance of whom it stands — strive to
discern the meaning of its elements, to im-
bibe the spirit that lives in its forms, to draw
nearer and nearer to the Master through its
opportunities, until you pass from the sym-
bolical and the earthly, to the spiritual com-
munion, without a shadow and without a
tear !

THE LORD'S SUPPER, CON-
SIDERED AS A MEMORIAL.

"This do in remembrance of me."

Luke xxii. 19.

There are few who die unremembered.
Be they the lowliest and most obscure of
earth, some heart aches when they are borne
to the grave, and calls up their image long
after the grass has grown above their sleep.
There are different kinds of commemoration
for the departed. Their memory fills a wider
or narrower circle — the funeral is different,
the monument is more lofty or low — more
grand or simple. For the warrior who has
shaken thrones, for the monarch, there are a
flashing of torches, a train of sables, a gilded
and pompous ceremony. Or they disturb the
sepulchre where he has slept in peace, and
where nature rears its own hatchments, to dig

HOURS OF COMMUNION.

up his ashes and lay them under the gor-
geous heraldry that human vanity loves ; as
if the tread of many feet, the adulation and
the wonder, were felt by the pulseless, moul-
dering heart below ! And beneath the earth
that shook at his tread, he slumbers like the
meanest peasant, while his name fills up the
stormy annals of the world, and the people
cry — " Here sleeps a warrior, a monarch ! "
And thus is he held in remembrance.

And there are those who die in holy war-
fare ; whose lives were full of blessed la-
bors, and above whom weeps the dew of the
martyr's grave. Humble mounds they may
have, or high columns, but they need not
these— for they live in glowing hearts, and
are commemorated in moral deeds that move
the world.

But these remembrances are more or less
public — living on the popular tongue, or
cherished in the popular sentiment. There
are mementoes of a more private and of a
gentler character than these. They are in-
scribed in the heart ; the soul garners them
among its sacred thoughts, and keeps them
gi-een with sweet and silent tears. But they

32 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

are memorials belter than piles of stone and
emblazoned carvings. And many are the
hearts that have such monuments as these,
of the loved and the departed. Coarse and
despised in the world, perhaps, they were ;
living in nooks and corners of the earth —
bending their backs in wretched drudgery —
sleeping on ricks of straw. Such as these
pass away from this thronged and busy life by
legions, and the world notes it not, nor thinks
of them. Yet there are those who do note
it, who do think of them. They stood by
their beds and took their feeble hands with
an emotion that swept the heart-strings with
an agony keen as that which sobbed aloud
in the death-chamber of the rich and the
great. And these humble ones cherish a
memorial in their souls — something there is,
kept like a holy thing, in those hearts that
beat under coarse raiment, and throb among
us unnoticed in the daily conflict of poverty
and toil.

Yes : there are few, few indeed, who have
no memorial. Who have gone down to their
graves uncared for. Who sleep, and no one
casts a thought upon their resting-place.

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 33

Thousands of living hearts are shrines of sa-
cred memory, and while nature plants flow-
ers upon this great sepulchre, the earth,
cherished, remembrances will grow around
the tombs of the departed. And these are
the spontaneous memorials of our common
nature.

But we pass on to remark that memory
gives us images more vivid and distinct,
when excited by near and dear associations.
We keep that memory safely lodged in the
heart — we feel that it is there— and yet, per-
haps, it is only when some peculiar spring is
touched, that the shrine opens and reveals
the relic. In plainer words, the memory of
absent and departed friends is always with
us, but not always vividly before us. It is
well that it is not so. Our minds would be-
come absorbed in regret for the past, to the
neglect of the present. But when some pe-
culiar train of thought is set in motion —
when some circumstance, though remotely
connected with the absent one is introduced
— the whole crowd of recollections rushes in
upon us, and fills our vision. A lock of hair,
a ring, a garment, will call up a long series

34 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

of hours and days, in Avhich the one to whom
that lock, that ring, that garment belonged,
will mingle first and foremost. It is a cus-
tom not without foundation in human nature,
that we require or receive of a journeying or
dying friend some visible token, that shall be
as a key to the casket wherein memory will
be sure to garner its precious recollections.

We trust, then, that it is not erroneous, or
improper to say, that it was to this principle
in human nature that Christ appealed, when
he took bread and broke it, and gave it to his
disciples, as a symbol of his broken body,
and said — " This do in remembrance of me."
The time of his separation from them, and
of his death, was at hand. Doubtless they
would have remembered him. Nay, after
his departure, their zeal might have per-
formed the work which they proposed to do
on the Mount of Transfiguration, and build a
Tabernacle for him. The recollection of his
teachings and his miracles, would have re-
mained in their minds, in the natural course
of things. He knew all this. And yet, he
takes those simple elements, and giving to
each, says, " Do this in remembrance of

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 35

me;" establishing the circumstance of the
passing hour as a simple and appropriate
rite. And why? Because as often as, in
the future, those disciples should gather
around the table for the purpose proposed,
and break the bread, their Saviour and Mas-
ter would come -vividly before their minds,
and with him would come tender memories
of his love, his life, his relations to them,
and of that last supper of which they partook
with him. Others would soon join in this
rite, and receive from the original communi-
cants those holy memories all fresh and
deep, and so it would go abroad in the world
and down to their successors ; and thus, in
all ages, the professors of Christ's religion,
would, at their periodical assembling around
the table of communion, be moved by the
associations that attach and linger there,
with a special memory of their Lord, and his
labors for them.

Without entering into any other argument,
then — without considering the Lord's Supper
from any other point of view — we would rest
the propriety and the efficacy of the institu-
tion upon this simple principle in human na-

36 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

ture — the power of association over the mem-
ory and over the soul. We contend that
these elements are not only symbols, hut as-
sociations, that bring before us the Saviour,
especially at that moment when all his ten-
derness and sympathy, moral power and di-
vine excellence, were concentrated in prepar-
ations for his great sacrifice for men. Sure-
ly, if the memory of departed friends steals
with a calm and purifying influence over the
spirit, the memory of Jesus and of those af-
fecting moments that precedes the Cross,
must have a melting and yet an elevating
power upon every soul that loves him.
There are those, even among Christians,
who look upon the communion-service as a
useless and cumbersome, if not a supersti-
tious ordinance, that ought to be thrown
aside with other religious forms which the
error of the middle-ages attached to Chris-
tianity. Against these we would array this
simple fact of its efficacy in moving and
melting the heart by its sacred associations
and suggestions. If they maintain that, in
the natural course of things, the memory of
Jesus, and what he has done for us, would

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 37

live in our souls, and be called up in hours
of thought and meditation ; we would ask if
the memory of dear friends, for whom we
have built tombs and sanctified a place in
our hearts, is not quickened and made
stronger by the sight of some simple relic — a
ring, or a book, or a flower ? And we would
say, that so may our memory of Jesus be en-
livened, and shed ain-oad a fresher influence,
when we gather around the table, and break
the bread, and partake of it, recollecting who
said, and under what circumstances he said,
"Do this in remembrance of me."

It is hard to understand the ground which
some worthy men take as to this matter. It
seems as if they do not sufiiciently compre-
hend the difference between a cumbersome
and empty ceremony, and a simple yet affect-
ing ordinance. Here, as in almost every-
thing else, there is a medium course. If this
ordinance is surrounded with mystery and
superstitious awe, it is true the mind will
become bewildered, and the true beauty
and efficacy of the rite will be lost. But
viewed as an institution whose associations
awaken the memory, elevate the thoughts,

38 HOUKS OF COMMUNION.

purify the heart, and make it warm towards
Jesus, it is no more objectionable than public
worship, the prayer, the hymn, the rich mel-
ody of the organ, and t]\e measured harmony
of music. All these act upon the principle
of association and suggestion, and if you
abolish one, why not all ? If one has been
abused, so have all. If one quickens reli-
gious affections, so do all.

" But," says the objector, " why not main-
tain the whole round of Romish o})serv-
ances?" To this we reply, that so far as
they only suggest holy thoughts, and asso-
ciate holy things, doubtless they might be
preserved, and the stern hand of Reformation
may have torn away some symbols and me-
morials that for the spiritual vision and the
devout heart had meaning and efficacy. But
so far as it can be urged against these rites
of the old church that ihey were burdensome,
we can only say of this ordinance of com-
munion, that it is not burdensome— if they
were performed in a strange tongue, this is
not — if they had no plain efficacy or mean-
ing, this has a simple and an affecting one —
and if they were not instituted by the Lord,

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 39

this was, or, at least, was indicated by him.
" But," says the objector again, " if instituted
at all, it was instituted only for those partic-
ular disciples." There is no warrant for this
limitation — no order for its abolition in the
future. Moreover, Christ never said or did
anything, the reasonableness of which cannot
be seen, and the same reason which appears
for the observance of the Lord's Supper
among the primitive disciples and in the jSrst
age of the church, urges its obsei*vance
among all disciples in all ages of the Chris-
tian dispensation.

On this one ground, then, without seek-
ing for others, we rest the reasonableness,
the propriety of continuing the observance
of the Lord's Supper, and find an argument
for presuming that Jesus meant it to be per-
petuated among his disciples.

But enough of argument with those who
reject the use of the communion. Let us
say a few words to those who are accus-
tomed to assemble around the table. Con-
sider, then, that injunction of the Saviour —
" This do in remembrance of me." Realize
the true meaning and power of this ordi-

40 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

nance. It will indeed be a formal and use-
less service if we participate in it from time
to time, mechanically and unreflectingly.
Realize the facts it commemorates — the com-
munion it signifies, the obligations it enjoins !
" This do in remembrance of me." Of
whom? Of Jesus Christ. And who was
Jesus Christ ? This may seem a strange
question, but it is one of some force. For,
are we accustomed to contemplate the Sa-
viour closely and fixedly enough ? Or, do
we abstract him — place him at a distance,
surrounded with a mystic halo like those we
see in old paintings? This is not the way
to study Christ, and to endeavor to compre-
hend his character. We must think of him
as one who has actually lived and mingled
among men — as a Bemg of the strongest
love, the deepest sympathy for our race.
" This do in remembrance of me ! " That is,
in remembrance of one who in his acts, his
sufferings, his death, has left the mightiest
claims upon our regard, and showed what
kind of remembrance ours should be. Let
this mandate not fall upon our ears without
meaning and without power. Let us feel

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 41

who and what we are to remember. Let us
gather around the table, with love burning
in our souls for our risen Lord !

" This do in* remembrance of me ! "
Through what does that remembrance lead
us ? To the low place of his birth — through
the scenes of his labor. Over the bosom of
Galilee, and into the woods of Olivet.
Where he lifts the leper from the dust, and
sits by the well of Samaria — where he opens
the eyes of the blind man, touches the bier of
the dead, supports the head of the beloved dis-
ciple, and blesses little children! And that
remembrance leads us to the scenes of his
suffering and sacrifice, to the garden of ago-
ny, the hall of judgment, the scourging and
smiting, the mocking and thorns, to Calvary,
the cross and the sepulchre.

Oh ! often, often let us visit these familiar
scenes in remembrance of our Saviour ! Fa-
miliar as they are, as we commune again and
again with him there, they will open with a
deeper and yet deeper meaning; they will
melt into our souls with divine and sanctify-
ing power ; they will penetrate our moral na-
ture, purify our affections, draw out our hearts

48 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

and thoughts to Christ, with 5

1 feeling that

shall be no transient glow, but

a permanent,

controlling principle, changing

the tenor of

our lives eind assimilating our

characters to

his.

OUR SAVIOUR'S PRAYER OF
FORGIVENESS.

"Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them ; for they
know not what they do." Luke xxiii. 34.

These are indeed memorable words. They
have compelled the admiration even of the
skeptic. They are filled with a beauty which
is not of this world. No wonder that Paul
gloried in the Cross of Christ ! Indeed, the
whole narration with which they are con-
nected is written with an arllessness and yet
a power that must draw out our assent to the
divine authenticity of the record. He who
reads' attentively, will, if he be a man of or-
dinary sympathy, naturally find his heart
full, and his eyes swimming with tears.
What a wonderful personality runs through
the whole description of those events, which
gather around the close of our Saviour's mis-

44 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

sion ! The forward, eager haste of Peter —
how consistently carried through the whole
narrative ! Impetuous and confident, we find
him resolved to follow his Lord to the death.
In the garden he boldly smites off the ear of
Malchus. In the palace of the High Priest,
he angrily denies Jesus, and as quickly re-
pents, goes out, and weeps bitterly. Con-
sider, too, that description of John, leaning
on the bosom of his Master, as one whom
Jesus loved ! How that intimacy appears to
shine out in the peculiar spirituality of his
Gospel ! And, then, there come darker char-
acters upon the scene. The traitorous Judas
— how true to nature that betrayal with a
kiss ! And the vacillating Pilate, convinced
that Jesus was innocent, yet moved by fears
of a Jewish insurrection, and jealous for the
honor of Rome. The scribes and Pharisees,
malignant, disregarding all precedents of
trial, hurrying on the death of him whom
they hated, their hands stained with his
blood — yet going not into the judgment-hall,
lest they should be defiled, but that they
might eat the Passover! And, then, that
fierce soldiery gathering with insult around

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 45

the Saviour, parting his garments and casting
lots for his vesture ! How true, how life-like
all ! In the rnidst of these scenes is that
meek, mild face, that ever bent with love
over the couch of the sick, and lighted up
the vision of the sorrowing — that meek, mild
face, uplifted in agony through the star-light
of Gethsemane, turning in gentle reproof
upon Peter, trickling with blood from the
thorny crown, spit upon and buffeted, look-
ing with affection upon that mother and that
disciple — " Woman, behold thy son " — and
to that disciple — " behold thy mother ! "
Here, we say, is an artlessness, and yet a
truth, that fraud could never conceive, nor
imposture execute.

This truthfulness belongs to that class of
proofs for the divine authenticity of the Rec-
ord, termed Internal Evidences, which are,
undoubtedly, the most convincing and imme-
diate. We may, perhaps, unconsciously hide
the full force of those evidences from our
minds, by looking with a view too peculiar
upon them. We may surround them too
much with mystery and awe, and not bring
to them the same untrammelled, comprehen-

46 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

sive mind with which we regard other books,
and Other narrations. But we may look upon
these records in a free, expanded spirit, and
yet not treat them irreverently, or thrust the
sharp knife of our own conceit, here and
there, wherever we list. What we mean by
a free, expanded view of these New-Testa-
ment records, is that we should realize that
they are narratives of transactions that have
actually occurred — we should feel that those
who are described there are beings who have
actually lived and moved among men — hav-
ing their affections, and their trials, and their
conflicts. Not by vague impressions, not by
mysteriously separating them from all other
men and all other transactions, will we
understand the events and the personages
described in the gospel. But manners, cus-
toms, forms of speech considered, we must
imagine men then as men are now, with the
love and the fear, the joy and the sorrow of
our nature. In this respect, precisely as we
would read any other history, let us read the
New-Testament. And doing thus, we re-
peat, we must be struck with the truthful-
ness, the life-like reality of the narrative

HOUES OP COMMUNION. 47

immediately connected with this Prayer of
Jesus.

But if this is a record of truth, then he who
could breathe such a prayer on the cross,
must have been from heaven. He taught a
system of universal love. But the precept is
here completed by the practice. The whole
life of Christ was a life of love. Good
works, blessed deeds, by the wayside, in the
temple, at the grave, crowd the record of his
personal history. But it was not here alone
that the spirit of love went out. He had
separated from his disciples, he had passed
through an ignominious trial, he had been
mocked, beaten, tortured. And now he was
suffering the most excruciating pain. It has
been conjectured as probable — and it is a
thrilling thought — that it was at the very
time when the nails were piercing his hands
and feet, and transfixing him upon the cross,
that he breathed this prayer — " Father, for-
give them, for they know not what they
do ! " However this may be, it was amid
insult and agony that he prayed thus. And
we say that it is an evidence of his divinity.
To bear pain bravely has been deemed a

48 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

high test of heroic virtue. Jesus not only
endures pain, but in melting tones of love
and forgiveness prays for those who inflict it.
There are those, too, who have died firmly,
like the Grecian pifilosopher — have died
amid the condolence of friends, the tears and
praises of admirers. But in that thronging
mass was there one to oifer a cup of cold
water to the lips of Christ ? There were
those there, perhaps, who at his voice had
felt the freshness and vigor of health, whose
sight he had restored, whose sick he had
healed, whose dead he had raised. But, if
there, was there one hand raised to soothe
his anguish? One voice to speak in kind-
ness to him ? Not one ! In that eager
crowd, face after face passed by without
sympathy, without tears — scowling, sneering
— "Ah! save thyself,"— or else with apathet-
ic curiosity. But with hate, envy, rage, all
around him, he breathed that prayer — " Fa-
ther, forgive them ; they know not what they
do!" Here was love, not spoken merely,
but lived, victorious over the keenest wrong,
breaking from that hallowed cross out
upon the ears of the world, to convince

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 49

all men of the divinity of him who hung
there.

In this great prayer is there not a rebuke
for all hatred and revenge ? Those emotions
lie deep in the human heart, deeper than we
may think. The wars that have sown earth
with blood and fire have their sources in
these emotions. The martyr's stake, the
dungeon, the scafibld, how often have they
been based upon these ! But we do not find
all the influence of a vengeful spirit and a
hating heart, in these wide and public evils ;
but it is an influence common to us all. It
is one of the most intimate and rankling pas-
sions of our nature, this feeling of revenge.
But it is an unholy feeling, condemned by all
the teachings of the Saviour, and rebuked by
his prayer upon the cross. Ye who indulge
it — ye who treasure up the memory of a
wrong that it may one day be revenged —
come now and consider this scene. An ig-
nominious cross, a crown of thorns, a death
of torture, and yet a prayer — " Father, for-
give them ; they know not what they do."

However much we may limit the applica-
tion of this prayer— although we admit that

50 HOUES OF COMMUNION.

it referred only to those who were driving the
nails — still it teaches us the lesson of love
rising above all wrongs, considerate, forgiv-
ing, under all circumstances.

There is, also, in this event, a lesson for
the afflicted and complaining. There are ills
in life which are indeed hard to bear. They
fall with a crushing Aveight upon our hearts
— steal with a withering influence over our
hopes — and, pained and wounded, we must
cry out with anguish. Yet, do we not, too
often, needlessly complain, with chafed, im-
patient spirits? A broken limb, a day's
sickness, an aching head, will make us fret
and murmur at our lot. And then, when
heavier calamities come, and grief is stifling
among our heart-strings, we may wonder
that we bear them — that we do not sink in
despair. Is there no lesson — no rebuke, or
encouragement, as the case may be, for such
as these, in the prayer of Christ upon the
cross ? What anguish of body hast thou
borne like him ? What grief oppresses thee
that might not have oppressed him in that
hour of ignominy, desertion and death ? Ye
hapless ones, almost broken-hearted, cannot

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 51

the same Power that sustained him at that
awful moment, sustain thee ? See ! pierced
and bleeding, with sharp torture thrilling
every nerve, with the shouts of the multitude
ringing in his ears, the heads of foes wagging
scornfully, he is calm, he trusts, he looks to
God. Nay, deep as his anguish is, he prays
not for himself, but for others — " Father, for-
give them ; they know not what they do ! "

Beneath this prayer, too. Christians may
well lay aside rancorous controversy, and
feel their common bond of union. The cross
of Christ! — that is the symbol of us all.
The old Christians wove it into their ban-
ners, and reared it in their dwellings — the
fool-sore pilgrim knelt to it by the wayside —
and long, long, the dying gazed at it with
their dim eyes, and pressed it feebly to their
lips. We do not do this. We put by the
symbol and search for the spirit — and yet our
token is the cross of Christ. The cross of
Christ! There centre our hopes, there die
our fears, there fall our sins, there gushes our
penitence, there beams the light of blessed
assurance upon our tears. Our church may
be the Catholic church, or our creed may be

52 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

the Orthodox creed, or we may live among
men as poor deluded heretics ; yet we feel
that we have confidence to come here — to
say, " No man can pluck this from me ! "
And so, though it may be by different paths,
we all come to the cross of Christ. And
coming there, surely we should learn the law
of love and the spirit of consideration. If our
brother errs, we learn here our duty — not to
denounce, but to have mercy— not to wrangle
bitterly, but, rather, to hear that blessed
prayer — " Father, forgive them ; for they
know not what they do I "

Finally; here is a truth for the sinful to
consider. Here is a sign to dispel fear —
here is a motive to forsake evil. Are you
conscious of sin ? Is your memory loaded
with guilt ? Hear this prayer of forgiveness !
Is not the religion of him who breathed that
prayer the same now that it was then ? Is
not the same spirit in it ? And is not God,
whose manifestation, whose express image
Christ was, the same God still, ready, wait-
ing to forgive ? Let us not lose sight of this
idea. Let us remember that if Christ was
thus forgiving, God is so. Let not the

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 53

thought that we have done wrong, then,
that we are guilty in his sight, keep us
from seeking his forgiveness, his face, his
favor.

We said, too, that here was a motive to
forsake sin — the strongest that can be pre-
sented— even the overflowing love of God.
What can prevail, what can move and melt
us, if this prayer of forgiveness, full of the
very love of God, does not affect us ?

The cross of Christ! let us regard it as
a manifestation of GoJ's mercy to man — a
place where he condescends to meet us with
the great argument of love, to draw us from
our wanderings— where he speaks and says,
" Return ! " And can we refuse to come ?
He says — " Do wrong no more ! " and can we
still do wrong? Can we yet sin against all
this love — sin! with that prayer ot Jesus
thrilling through our hearts — " Father, for-
give them; for they know not what they do."
What devotion, what humility, what
yearnings of the heart, do we behold here at
the death of our Saviour! Let us pause and
look upon it. It is hallowing for us to linger
here. Perhaps that love will, as we gaze,

54

HOURS OF COMMUNION.

move us to penitence, and fill us with abetter
life — perhaps we shall be constrained to cry
out,

" Hear, shepherd ! Ihou that for thy flock art dying,
Oh, wash away these scarlet sins, for thou
Rejoicest at the contrite sinner's vow.
Oh, wait ! — to thee my weary soul is crying, —
AVait for me ! — Yet why ask it, when I see.
With feet nailed to tlie cross, thou 'rt wailing there
for me ! "

THE CROWN OP THORNS

Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of
thorns. — John xix. 5.

Mockery never degrades the just. The
good cannot be shamed. The arrows of
persecution — the sharp missiles of scorn —
glance from them harmless ; more than
this — they illustrate their virtue. Though
it be not true that the man makes the cir-
cumstances, it is true that the man gives
character to the circumstances. The strong
level all obstacles to their purpose. In trial,
the good shine with a refined lustre. Wealth,
nor power, nor adulation, can ennoble the
mean. But the righteous turn ignominy into
glory. They do not create, but they com-
mand. By a virtue that is in them, they sub-
due all accidents into tone and keeping with

56 HOURS OP COMMUNION.

themselves. Character is greater than cir-
cumstances, and may get the master)' over
them !

The trial of our Saviour illustrates the
truth which we have now suggested. Never
did malignant hatred and heartless cruelty
accumulate upon their victim grosser insignia
of punishment and scorn. They scourged him,
they buffeted him, they spit upon him ; but
this was not enough. In order to connect the
idea of his sovereignty with the meanest ridi-
cule, they tore off his garments, threw around
his bleeding shoulders a purple robe, placed
in his hand as a sceptre a miserable reed,
and platting a crown of thorns, crowded it,
with its rankling points, upon his head, and
then, with mock humility and spiteful grimace,
did homage to him. But though all this was
meant to deride him, never did he seem more
truly a king. We shudder — but it is at the
sacrilegious spirit of his persecutors ! We
weep — it is because that brow of love is lac-
erated by cruel thorns ! But not for an
instant does Jesus seem to us debased, or
contemptible. Vilely arrayed as he is, he
stands there amid that brutal soldiery, amid

HOURS OP COMMUNION. 57

the malignity that peers upon him, a serene
and holy character, and everything feels
its influence. A secret reverence thrills
the souls even of those who mock him.
And when Pilate brings him forth clothed in
the purple robe and crown of thorns, and
says, " Behold the man ! " their angry re-
sponse of "Crucify him! cracify him!"
seems the ebullition of a mad consciousness
that the more they seek to debase him, the
more majestic he appears. To those mock
emblems of sovereignty, his pure life imparts
a royal >istre. They degrade not him, but
he ennobles ihern. He comes forth wearing
a crown of thorns. To us it is the same as
if he wore a diadem.

Rut let us ask, ill-meant as was this crown
of thorns, was there not after all a fitness in
it ? Did not these men, as is often the case,
through an invention of wickedness, work out
a signal propriety? Is there not a signifi-
cance in that crown of thorns, that could not
have been in a flashing diadem ? We say
that for two reasons, at least, there was
such a significance, and we will proceed to
exhibit those reasons. First : Christ's life was

68 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

a life of sacrifce and sorrow; and at the
dose, therefore, it was appropriate he should
be croicned with thorns. Why should they
set a kingly coioiiet upon him who had not
where to lay his head ? Why wreathe with
gems those locks that were wet with dews
of the night ? Why encircle with a golden
band that brow that was pale with the agony
of the garden? Christ came not to be our
earthly monarch, and rule according to the
conventionalities of outward things. He
came to rule the soul, and, as our great Exem-
plar, to illustrate its worth and its triumph.
And this is best seen in conflict and in suffer-
ing. Through temptation successfully re-
sisted, through sorrow sanctified into strength,
the soul wins its great victory. The work of
spiritual advancement is no easy labor ; it is
a discipline — in overcoming those stormy pas-
sions within us, in subduing allurements and
crosses without, in elevating right, and holi-
ness, and purity, into the foremost and
highest rule of our souls, we have no easy
work to discharge. Often can we overcome
obstacles only by painful effort — often will
disappointment affect us to tears. For a soul

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 59

sincerely, earnestly engaged about this work
of spiritual advancement, there are mountain
heights of joy, and there is always a calm
sky of love, but also are there seasons of
watchfulness, daj's of strenuous labor, occa-
sions of penitence and self-rebuke, that "A'ill
sometimes bring it down into the valley of
humiliation and the region of sorrow. At
least it is a serious, though not a gloomy
work. Not incompatible with cheerfulness
is it, and with serenity. These we derive
from our meditations upon God, while our
effort and our tears come from our medita-
tions upon ourselves. The moment we look
out upon the universe, we see that it is bathed
in the light of God's love, and that the full
radiance of that love streams from the cross.
Therefore our life is not to be spent in gloomy
apprehensions and grovelling fears. No : it
is labor, not fear, thai we should exercise —
strenuous effort, never despair. Yet, we
repeat, life is to be spent seriously, thought-
fully. When we consider what goes on
within us — when we consider the passions
that so easily drown the dictates of con-
science— the selfishness that urges to so

60 HOUKS OF COMMUNION.

many sins — the evil thoughts and desires
that lead us to disobey our Father and neglect
his love ; when we look within and consider
all this, we shall find that verily our great
work of spiritual advancement is to be
wrought out through labor and through con-
flict.

Sometimes, too, our spiritual discipline is
appointed not merely in conflict with moral
evil, but with the natural ills of life. We
lose our fondest possessions, we shed tears
over our fairest hopes. We lay in the grave
those in whom we have garnered up our
dearest affections. They who meet these
ills as they ought, will, no doubt, in the end,
find them to be agents of the highest spirit-
ual advancement. Away up, as from moun-
tain heights, hear the great apostle, passing
even then through storms, cry out — " Our
light affliction which is but for a moment,
worketh for us a far more exceeding and
eternal weight of glory !" It is so with
every one who meets the sorrows of this life
with a right spirit— who learns resignation
through suffering, and failh in m3'stery. This
is one explanation of sorrow and suflTering.

H0UB3 OP COMMUNIOIT. 61

It is a key to the great enigma of life. By
suffering, by sorrow, the righteous soul is
purified and made strong.

To recur, then, to what we said a little
while ago — the worth and the triumph of the
soul, as we have endeavored to show, are best
seen through conflict and suffering. But
Christ illustrates the worth and triumph of
the soul, and therefore, his life was a life of
sorrow and of pain. He slept in the man-
ger— he strove against temptation in the wil-
derness. Denied by his own, he drank the
cup of sorrow after bitter wrestling of spirit,
and he died the death of a malefactor, though
he went about doing good. " A man of sor-
rows " was he, " and acquainted with grief."
True : but he came to be " the captain of our
salvation," and " was made perfect through
suffering." Not by royal apparel, not in
kings' houses, not upon David's throne, could
he have shown us the worth and power of the
soul, and become our great Exemplar. This
he did through conflict and through sorrow.
Appropriate to his own life, then, considered
as a personal history, and appropriate to that
life considered as an illustration and an

62 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

example, did they, as he drew near its close,
crown him with thorns. Thus was his dis-
cipline fitlj' completed and rendered signifi-
cant. In this, far belter than in a royal dia-
dem, could he say — " It is finished ! "

But there is another reason why that crown
of thorns was most significant — and that is,
because Christ triumphed in conjlict and over
sorrow. Not merely was it appropriate to the
circumstances of his life — but to the residt
also. Not only did he drink the cup — he
drank it serenely. Not only did he groan
out — " Eloi, lama, sabbacthani ! " but he said,
with unfaltering trust — " Father, into thy
hands, I commend my spirit." Life's con-
flicts and sorrows are indeed thorns, but when
we have gone through them victoriously, to
use the simile of another, well may we
convert them into a crown. The soldiery, in
their blindness, did not see it — the Jews, in
their eager hatred, did not think of it — but,
in fact, they crowned him as the great victor,
through whom ice obtain victory, and more
exactly appropriate was it, than if they had
wreathed palm about his brow, or set a coro-
net of jewels on his head. He has tri-

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 63

umphed over sin, and sorrow, and death.
Crown him with thorns then! — they are the
fittest emblems of those evils which he has
made his trophies.

Christ's religion is appropriately called
" the religion of sorrow." Not that for one
moment we would sanction the idea that it is
a gloomy religion, or that it is only to be
associated with death, decay and tears. It
is the religion of sorrow, because in it alone
the troubled soul can find consolation. It
alone has answers deep enough to satisfy the
soul of man in affliction. It is appropriate
to every condition of life. It sanctifies our
joys, and alone gives us a happiness perma-
nent, serene, and pure. Still, the human
heart more instinctively seeks its aid in the
season of affliction. Its attractiveness is seen
more clearly then, because the garish lights
of this world are put out. The shadows of
evening have fallen upon this earth, the cross
and the sepulchre stand out in relief before
us, and heaven reveals itself with all its orbs
of light. We find that this world, to which
we have so long confined our efforts and our
hopes, is but a little sphere after all, and that

64 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

an eternity, full of vast interests, encompasses
us. And the word of eternal life, the prom-
ises of the gospel, the teachings of Jesus,
infuse better hopes and more enduring
strength into our souls, and we feel that noth-
ing can supply their place. For its fitness to
the soul of man in affliction, then, while it is
none the less fitted to him in prosperity — for
its power and consolation in the time of grief
— the religion of Christ is appropriately
called, " the religion of sorrow."

But we wish to remark, that it is the reli-
gion of sorrow, not for the purpose of sooth-
ing us into a delicious q.uiet, or making us
merely happy. It is a religion not for chil-
dren only, but for men. Not merely to still
our nerves, to dry our tears, to allay the
tremulous beating of our hearts. Merely to
take sorrow as it comes, with an indolent
resignation, is not so well, even, as to meet it
with the marble resistance of the old stoic.
We must learn " to suffer and be strong" —
to draw from grief all its discipline, all its
unction for the soul. Let no sorrow pass
over us without making us better. Let us
bear with it, not because we are weaker but

HOURS OF COMMUNION.

because we are stronger — than it. Let us
not walk merely without complaint among
its wounding thorns. Let us pluck them
and wreathe them into a crown. This we
shall do, if every sorrow strengthens our
faith, expands our hope, deepens the religious
life within us, leads us up to God. But now,
Jesus knelt in the garden. Darkness was
around him. His disciples slumbered. His
face uplifted to the star-light, glistened with
full, fast tears. The still air was broken by
his groans of anguish. And he prayed, yea
he wrestled there, that the cup, so cold, so
bitter, might pass from him. But he prayed
in obedience and in faith. And though he
must drink that cup, even he is stronger than
ever now. And they have crowned him for
it, and how proper ! — have crowned him with
thorns.

So be it with us when v/e are called to suf-
fer. We may not deny our nature. We
cannot restrain tears. In the impulses of
our agony we may wrestle with our fate — for
it is not a dark, unfeeling fate. But let our
souls be made better by that affliction, be it
what it may. Let us feel that sorrow has

66 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

now less power than ever to quench our
hope, or shake our filial trust. Let us rise,
with serenity in our tears. Let us keep a
closer hold on God and heaven, .'seeing that
all things else are demonstrated to us to lie
unstable. Let our affliction end in sanctifi-
cation. And, though we win no other
crown — though the world knows not the
struggle that has gone on within us — God
has seen us and blessed us ; and we have
won a crown of thorns — a crown of that,
which, but now, pierced and wounded us.

And now do we not see the significance of
that thorny diadem with which they mocked
our Saviour? Oh! yes; they meant it for
cruelty, and for shame, but we will hail it as a
trophy of his triumph and his strength. Fit-
ting is it that " the man of sorrows " should
thus be crowned ! Fitting is it that the vic-
tor over evil should thus be crowned ! No
less is he king and conqueror after all, but
with even a greater significance does he
appear to us to be so. Let us learn the
sacred lesson ! Let us emulate the great
example ! As Christ's character converted
the circumstances of infamy into a symbol of

HOURS OP COMMUNION. 67

glory — SO let us, by our characters, ennoble
all circumstances. As he passed through
sorrow, with suffering and with conflict, let
us not expect to be exempt, hut when it
comes use it as a discipline. And as in all
that suffering and conflict he triumphed, let
us triumph ; and, though we wear no crown
of thorns, yet every sin overcome, every afflic-
tion rightly borne, will shed a halo of light
around our souls — will do more— will imbue
them with an immortal majesty !

But one other lesson remains to be consid-
ered. " Then came Jesus forth, wearing the
crown of thorns, and the purple robe. And
Pilate saith unto them, ' Behold the man ! ' "
Ay, reader, " Behold the man !" He stands
before us, melhinks, even now. Stripped,
and marked with cruel buffetings — his flesh
smarting with brutal wounds — arrayed in
robes of mockery, and crowned with thorns !
" Behold the man !" not agitated by anger —
not moved to vengeance. But gazing with
resignation through all that shame ; and,
deeper even than this, with yearning pity.
What brought him to this ? What led him
to endure the mockery and the blows ?

HOURS OF COMMUNION.

What is it that stands there, crowned with
thorns? Love! It is nothing else but
Love ! No other power in all the universe,
but love, could thus endure. Only thus are
its exhaustless riches and its divine glory
manifested. Only in sutTering and in sacri-
fice can it reveal its depths. When all else
fails then it begins to shine. When all else
gives up then it commences its Avork — its
immortal, its triumphant work. Yes : that
is love, God's love ! that beams out from the
face of Christ; — that, anon, will trickle in
blood and be broken by nails. God's love!
It endures long, but it triumphs, and there-
fore, in its greatest manifestation here upon
earth, was crowned with thorns. Christ
crowned with thorns ! can anything else
teach us so significantly the great truth of

SUFFERING YET TIIIUMPHANT LOVE? And

love for whom ? For whom was that sor-
row borne ? Oh ! reader, let us not be dull-
eyed, or hard-hearted— for you and me it
was!

CHRIST WITHIN US.

My little children, of whom I travail in birth
again until Christ be formed in you. — Gal. iv. 19.

It may not be necessary to remark here,
that the phrase "little children," is often
used in the New Testament as a term of
endearment, and is addressed to persons of
all ages, being especially appropriate as used
by the apostle Paul towards the members of
the church of Galatia, since they were indeed
his children — he being the instrument of their
conversion to Christ.

In this expression of earnest desire there
is opened to us a grand spiritual truth. The
apostle shows us the great work that is to
be wrought in the soul of man, ere he can
become perfect and holy. He is to become,
in his moral nature, like Christ — yea, the

70 HOURS OP COMMUNION.

expression is more intense than this — Christ
is to be formed in him! We wish, in this
chapter, to illustrate and impress this truth.

The glory of the visible creation is, or
would be, a perfect man. There are beauti-
ful creations all around us that manifest the
wisdom and goodness of God, But the
Father has given nothing so glorious and so
precious as the human soul. The flower
and the ocean, and the sunbeam, are the
works of his hands — but this, the soul, is the
representative of his very nature. The
morning-star shines with a perishable lustre
— the sea with all its strength shall be rolled
together as a vapor and pass away — but a
pure, righteous and loving soul, has in it the
eternity and the likeness of God, and shall
survive all outward and material things.

We may trace this fact in the clear dis-
tinction that is to be seen between the man
and his works. What a discrepancy is there
between the creation and the capacity —
between the word that breaks upon the lips
and the inexliauslible thought that gushes
within! What is the finest masterpiece of
art to the artist's ideal ? What is the loftiest

HOUES OF COMMUNION. 71

reach of discovery to the earnest aspiration
that stretches out for more ? Music, sculp-
ture, poetry, painting, these are glorious
works; but the soul that creates them is
more glorious than they. The music shall
die on the passing wind — the poem may be
lost in the confusion of tongues — the marble
will crumble and the canvass will fade —
while the soul shall be quenchless and
strong — filled with a nobler melody, kindling
with loftier themes, projecting images of
unearthly beauty, and drinking from springs
of imperishable life.

This is what the soul is of itself— what
may be its best manifestations. But the
manifestations of the human soul around us,
are in much, much, dark, degraded and nar-
row. It is as vain to endeavor to palliate
the great fact of moral evil, as it is to dis-
guise it. The controversy about total de-
pravity does not centre here. The fact of
deep and radical sinfulness is not disputed.
The whole earth is scarred by sin. The
frame-work of society is clogged and weak-
ened by the evil desires and passions that
dwell in the human heart. And the individ-

72 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

ual phases of humanity are no less decisive
upon this point than its social aspects. The
most perfect man has his besetting sin.
Sometimes the mind that soars the loftiest
will grovel lowest. Who has not seen impe-
rial genius brutify itself? Who has not
seen men who seemed immaculate and serene
in their virtue, fall from their high place,
detected in mean iniquity and marked with
sin? Who has not seen dark and fantastic
contradictions like these, pass over the bright-
est manifestations of human nature — making
it seem almost as if man had in him two
elements: the one an angel struggling
upward to the light, the other a lewd and
hideous fiend, mocking at virtue, suggesting
iniquity, sneering at faith, and laughing at
the soul's best aspirations ? No ; no ; we do
not deny the fact of sin, penetrating, widely-
diffused sin. With these appalling develop-
ments that break upon us every day — with
the whole creation travailing in pain together
— we cannot deny it.

The setting too low an estimate upon
human nature, may have caused some of us
in this age to exalt it too high. It is the

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 73

result of reaction upon the skeptic's doubt
and the theologian's dogma. When man was
made to be a merely selfish and sensual crea-
ture— when he was held as utterly depraved
— then came vindications of that nature — then
arose men eloquent in behalf of its capacities
and its dignity. And this is true also. Side
by side we must place man's capacity with
his sinfulness— his dignity and his depravity
— for both are true. For every circumstance
of being, then, for every condition of society,
for every course of human conduct, we have
this criterion. Does it tend to develop and
exalt the soul — that portion of our nature
which is unlimited and immortal? Here is
the true evil of ignorance, oppression, or vice.
We would have man learn and know, in order
that his ideas of his relations to the universe,
to man, to God, may be enlarged — in order
that he may realize more deeply the spirit-
uality and dignity of his being — and not
merely that he may collect facts and become
familiar with details. When the mind be-
comes merely a receptacle of names and
dates and facts — when it has only gained
knowledge to repeat it by rote — it leaves

74 H0UE3 OF COMMUNION.

man a mere machine, narrow and formal,
with but feeble inherent power, and little
true advancement. True education is that
which draws out, which develops, which
opens in the deep places of the soul eternal
fountains of thought and life. The more
ignorant men are, in comparison with this,
the more they are allied to the animal, and
therefore do we lament their ignorance.

Here too, is the evil of all social or polit-
ical oppression. It is not merely the body
that is injured, but the soul is degraded and
hurt therebj^, and this is the chief wrong.
So, as to vice and crime. The overt act is but
a light thing compared to the spiritual evil.
Here, then, is the true value of education, of
efforts for social freedom and progress, for
moral reform. They are valuable because
they recognize the worth, and labor for the
perfection and advancement of the human
soul.

But do we not perceive that these and sim-
ilar efforts are, in themselves, fragmentary,
and that when joined they are still incom-
plete ? They lack wholeness, they lack the
unity of perfection. When a man has

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 75

developed the intellect, is socially free, and
clean from vice or crime, something yet is
needed to make him a perfect man, and to
manifest in him the true ideal of goodness.
Still, there is wanting something that intel-
lectual education and philosophy cannot ac-
complish. In the elements of man's moral
nature there is needed a divine life which
these can never kindle there. The heart
must be penetrated with a love and a holiness
that shall illuminate the whole being, and
subdue it, breaking out in every feature, liv-
ing in every act — that shall be the great
principle of motive and of conduct.

Oh ! say, is not the spirit of Christ the ele-
ment that is needed, in order to make the
perfect man ? Must it not be Christ, Christ
within us, that shall harmonize and complete
all that is good and spiritual in man ?

Yes : here is the great truth at which we
must arrive. In order to achieve the true
end of our natures — in order to be perfect
and harmonious beings, Christ must be
formed within us. We must become like
Christ. His spirit must mould our spirits,
re-create them, as it were, until they are his.

76 HOUES OF COMMUNION.

We visit not the shrine of human philosophy
in order to learn the true end of our being.
We cannot discover it in mere books or
written words. We cannot find that which
shall deliver us from this thrall of sin — we
cannot find what shall say to these waves of
passion, " peace, be still ;" we cannot find
these unless we come to Christ.

Not with any love for novel expressions,
not with any irreverence do we say, that
Christ was the model-man. He is the
model for that which lies deepest and aspires
highest in our being — our religious nature.
Christ did not come to bestow intellectual
superiority. He did not come to establish
forms of human government, or to make the
laws of nations. But he established that
which has a direct influence upon these — that
which purifies and elevates intellect and
brings it near to the throne of God — that
which binds society securely together — that
which is the great principle of all laws, and
gives them their sanctity — their efiicacy.
He came to kindle in man's soul a Divine
Life. The divine life that is in him, through

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 77

him flows to us, and we become partakers
of it as Christ is formed within us.

It can never be made to appear that Christ
was merely as other men — as other good men
— as Socrates or Plato — as the reformers or
prophets of the earth. He is above them all,
as the direct channel of divine life to man.
He is above them all, as being greater than
teacher, reformer, or prophet — as the agent
of divine life, the Saviour from the sin that
enslaves us, the passions that overcome us,
the impure motives and desires that urge us.
He is above them all, as standing upon that
point where heaven and earth meet — where
the stream of divine communion and life
flows down from God to us.

" Little children," said the apostle, " I
travail in birth again until Christ be formed
in you." Not alone were the members of the
church of Galatia interested in the great truth
contained in these words. All should give
heed to them, for all are behind perfection,
and, however low and sinful, all may have
Christ formed in them. The soul ! here
alone is its true development and excellence.
The soul ! do we heed its value ? Do we

HOUBS OF COMMUNION.

realize its great end? Is Christ fornied
in us ? Amid our endless round of toil, our
schemes for gain, ease, or pleasure, our sor-
rows and our joys, do we still yield to the
dominion of sin — do we absorb all thought
and action in sensual life ? It is a solemn
question for us to ask. Would that there
were tongues in every deed of ours — in every
spot whereon we stand — saying to us — " until
Christ be formed in you." What do we say ?
There are such tongues ! In every step we
take, that admonition of an unfinished work
speaks to us. Whence comes this restless-
ness within us ? What is the purpose of this
unquenched desire within the soul? We
secure one end — but still seek for another.
We heap up so much wealth, but ask for
more. We increase in knowledge, and yet
there is a void. We rise in reputation, but
we are not satisfied. No; we cannot be
satisfied with anything short of the true end
of our being. We cannot be satisfied, until
Christ is formed in us. This is the voice
which comes from every work in which thy
soul fondly hopes to rest—" until Christ be
formed in you." Wealth, fame, pleasure,

HOUES OP COMMUNION. 79

can give you no solid comfort — " until Christ
be formed in you." To you, it may be, life's
soiTows are a mystery, and death a darkness,
and so they will be " until Christ be formed
in you." To you there come temptations;
you yield to sin, knowing that you do wrong,
yet urged by a mighty impulse ; and so it will
be — " until Christ be formed in you." For
you there can be no real rest — no serene, per-
petual joy, " until Christ be formed in you."
Not only do I utter this truth to you.
Greater than I utter it. Your own experi-
ence speaks it. Awake ! act for the true end
of your being. The life that you should
seek has been lived out for you, on the
mountains and by the sea-shore, by the way-
side, and on the cross. Let that life be
ours ! Let Christ be formed within us !

THE CROSS OF CHEIST,

—The cross of Christ.— Ga/. vi, 12.

Whatever may be the speculative views
of different Christians respecting the death
of our Saviour, to all there is a mighty inter-
est and a pervading sanctity in the scene of
his crucifixion and the hour of his last agony.
Around that once-accursed wood, now radiant
with a glorious transformation, there cling
associations original, alfecling and sublime,
that give to its representations by the way-
side, at the altar, on the church-top, wherever
worn, wherever used, an influence deep and
holy, and make it the comprehensive sj-mbol
of Christianity itself.

The cross of Christ ! May it not be
appropriate and beneficial for us to consider
some of the causes of its influence 7 To all

HOUES OF COMMUNION. 81

Christians there lingers around that death-
scene enough to melt and win the heart.
There is a consistency in that prayer of for-
giveness, a serenity in that " It is finished,"
a pathos in that struggling humanity, a sub-
limity in that triumphant faith, an appeal in
that great self-sacrifice, a power in that all-
pervading love, that make the cross of the
Redeemer radiant and holy — that give it a
peculiarity and an influence that every mind
must acknowledge, and every heart feel.
The Roman centurion, in the darkness of his
heathenism and in all the prejudice of his
unbelief, exclaimed " Truly, this was the
Son of God ! " What must the Christian
say, after a deeper insight into his Saviour's
mission, and a closer study into his Saviour's
character ? It has been truly said, that " it
is not the greatness of Christ's suffering
which is to move our souls, but the greatness
of the spirit with which he suffered," — that
in mere sensibility to his sufferings, there is
" no virtue, no moral worth, and we dishonor
Jesus, when this is the chief tribute we offer
him" — that with the apostles, "reverence,
admiration, sympathy with his sublime spirit,

82 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

swallowed up, in a great measure, sympathy
with his sufferings." Let us, then, approach
the cross, and behind the agony endeavor to
discern something of the spirit that was man-
ifested there.

27ie cross of Christ! We see there a
manifestation of uufaHering- adherence to
duty. We say, unfaltering- adherence. If
Jesus shrunk from the bitterness of the last
hour, if he prayed with intense agony that
the cup might pass from him, he did not
shrink from duty — he did not ask to be free
from that. Perhaps, if that duty might be
discharged without tliat poignant suffering,
if it might be accomplished without the
thorns, the scourging and the cross, he would
have it so ; but the " Father's will be done !"
And, strengthened, he calmly rose from that
hour of anguish, and went forward to the
end ! The rough palms could not deter him,
nor the fierce mockerj^— all that Pilate, all
that man could do, could not urge him to
desist from tlie completion of his work. The
sense of the presence and favor of God is the
sustaining strength of the good, and perhaps
it was in relation to this that he cried out,

HOURS OF COMMUNION.

" Eloi, lama, sabachthani ! " But that thought
remained but for a moment, and, in victorious
assurance, he commended his spirit to the
Father. His duty was done, accomplished
through toil and blood, and that pale, bleed-
ing face bore impress of the spirit's lofty tri-
umph.

Here, then, was duty unwavermgly adhered
to — the allotted work performed, despite all
trial. This is one lesson that we learn from
the cross of Christ. Let it have its influence
upon us. Let us remember that duty, at all
sacrifices, is to be performed. To this we
must cling, let what will fail, or threaten.
And the triumph will come, at last. The
dutiful spirit is ever the victorious spirit.
No one ever went forward in duty, despite
all obstacles, without reaping, in the end, an
abundant reward. The moral coward, the
time-server, the disobedient, is always the
loser — the dutiful man smiles, triumphant, at
the last. The light of God's approval con-
verts the crown of thorns to a diadem of glory,
and his example becomes strength and vic-
tory to others.

The cross of Christ. We see there a lofty

84 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

self -sacrifice. Not for himself, droops yon-
der sufferer. Not for himself, he wears that
bleeding brow. Not for himself he meets
that wounding spear, and dies. Christ died
for the guilt}", not as the guilty. He died for
their good, for their everlasting welfare. He
died that man might live — died thus, tempo-
rally, died in agony and in shame, that man
might have eternal life, and be won to know
and love God. For these great ends, he lived
also. It so laid in the course of his mission,
that if he would teach men, would open the
life, and the trutJi, and the way, he must die
— he must come in collision with pride and
ignorance, and hate and fear, and be cru-
cified. Yet he went forward with that mis-
sion. He turned not from it. He hesitated
not. His life was necessary to man. His
death was necessary. We do not stop now
to inquire in what respects that death was
necessary, but it was for man's welfare, and
in meeting it Jesus died for man. He sacri-
ficed self for the good of the world. And as
we look upon those pierced and outstretched
hands, those cold pale lips upon which lin-
gers yet the sanctity of prayer, that face

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 85

where holy triumph has softened tlie linea-
ments of anguish — let us realize that that
blood was shed for us — was poured out freely
for our race, and that flesh marred and
broken that we might he better and happier.
And let us learn therefrom the duty of self-
sacrifice. Oh! how little of Christ's spirit
is there in the world! We can endure but
very little suffering even for ourselves, much
less for others. We mourn if our schemes
do not gratify self. We do not extend self
until it becomes identical with our race. We
do not labor and spare, and strive and give,
that others may be blest. Or, do we thus?
Do we ever sacrifice self for others' good?
Believe it, whenever we do, we shall exhibit
a portion of that moral sublimity which sheds
a radiance around the cross of Christ.

Tke cross of Christ ! We behold there a
holy suhinission and a triurn.phant confidence.
There may be a shrinking from physical
pain. There may be a momentary cry of
anguish. But these are transient interrup-
tions. The great spirit of that death on the
cross, is submission and trust. Submission
through tests of shame and pain ; confi-

86 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

dence wrung from dying' agony. " Mother !
behold thy son." What a spring of human
affections is opened here — here, upon the
cross — here, amid all the tumult of the mul-
titude ! "Mother! behold thy son." How
tenderly, how anxiously, these words drop
from the sufferer's lips. And was there not
anguish, a spirit alive to keen suffering, in
him who spoke tlius ? Did not excessive
thirst wring an exclamation from his parched
lips? Was it not amid a sense of sharp
endurance that he breathed that sublime
prayer? Elevate not that cross, above the
sympathies of human nature ! There was
suffering there — affliction of body and of
soul! And yet — behold what submission!
" Thy will be done, not mine." He did not
once swerve from that pious sentiment. He
did not strive against it. And, then, over his
dying moments, gleamed that great confi-
dence, like living sunlight. " Father, into
thy hands I commend my spirit ! " The vic-
tory was won. The pain of the body, the
sorrow of the mind, could not triumph over
the trust of the soul. So let us learn to be
submissive and trustful. Let no sorrow

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 87

overwhelm us with despair — let no burden
force us from obedience to the will of God.
Remember Jesus and his dying moments.
Let his faith and trust be ours. For even
amid the darkness of the third hour, they
lingered with holy light around the cross of
Christ.

The cross of Christ! We behold there
omnipotent and universal love. This is the
great attraction of that cross. It is an exhi-
bition of love. No thunders break above
that drooping head. All there is calculated
to melt the heart of man, to win it, to smite
open its affections, to draw out its sympa-
thies with goodness and with truth. Even
here, amid the sacred sorrow of the scene,
breathes that benediction that a little while
ago we fieard from angel-tongues — " Peace on
earth — good will to man ! " Peace and good
will ! God speaks it, even in the marred
image of his beloved Son. It is reiterated
from the lips of bleeding sacrifice. Wisdom
may limit its expedients. Power may refuse
to condescend . But love knows no bounds to
its efforts. Mightiest when it humbles itself
the most, dying but to triumph, it cannot be

HOURS OF COMMUNION.

repelled, it cannot be quenched. With out-
stretched arms it rushes from the throne of
God to the deepest abyss of human wo and
degradation, and Deity speaks not in the
awful serenity of justice, but pleads with
bleeding side and crown of thorns. Love !
this is the influence that breathes from the
cross and attracts us there. Love ! victori-
ous over sorrow, shame and pain. Love !
seeking the welfare of the world. Love !
breaking out in praj-ers of forgiveness, and
appealing in sublime silence to the testimony
of its deeds. Oh ! the cross of Christ is the
exhibition of God's love to man. From the
cross, that love shall triumph !

Thus have we endeavored to specify some
of the lessons which come from the cross of
the Redeemer. We have there an exhibition
of traits and attributes that are calculated to
excite deep interest and to stir profoundly the
aflfections. We have there a manifestation of
obedience, and devotion, and confidence, and
love, amid scenes of gloom and agony, exerted
for man's highest welfare. We do not say
that there is no other meaning in the death
of Christ. We view it as the great crowning

HOURS OF COMMUNION.

act of his mission — an act intimately con-
nected with the great fact of his resurrection.
Had not Christ died thus, and been exposed
to the jealous scrutiny of his enemies, to the
exhausting pains of the cross, then we might
not have had that clear light upon his sepul-
chre, that transcendent triumph of his rising.
Was it not meet that he should die thus,
rejected, despised, crucified ? Had he died
in exaltation — had he been surrounded by tri-
umphant and admiring friends, should we
not lack the holy and beautiful lessons, the
sublime teachings, that we now receive ?
Earth's heroes have departed amid the shouts
of the multitude, with laurels around their
brows. Others have passed away in the
pomp of success, and the royalty of power.
But Jesus of Nazareth, our priest and our
king, dies amid brutal scoffs, pierced with
nails and crowned with thorns. But should
it not be so 7 Does not his character shine
out in its power and attractiveness from this
very fact ? There is nothing to foil the
divinity of his virtues. We are forced to
acknowledge them. From the rugged wood
they shine with a glory all their own. Royal

90 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

canopy, laurelled death-couch, could not have
made them what they are. They convert
the instrument of death and shame into a
symbol of glory — an agent of victory.

That Christ's death should take place as
it did, then, seems an essential fact in his
mission. It appears to us that vital results
are secured by it. It crowns his labors, by
giving an authority to his claims, an expres-
sion to his love, a moral to his teachings, an
opportunity for his triumph. And whatever
efficacy we attribute to his death and his
cross, there is, certainly, this great efficacy —
that cross is a medium of moral power — it
concentrates upon the heart of man the
majesty of truth, the sublimity of virtue, the
power of love. These shall appear clearer,
and have a warmer and more direct influence,
as men advance in moral perfection. The
cross of Christ is the emliodiment of Chris-
tianity— the manifestation of its true power.
All human philosophies sink below it.
This alone, marks tlie divine origin and
proves the efficacy of the gospel. It is a
moral appeal to a moral being. It aims at
the affections. It addresses the heart. It

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 91

sets before man a model ; it shows him the
depths of love. From that cross Christ
draiDs men. He does not force them, nor
bow them, by any physical power — he does
not dazzle them by a greatness that belongs
only to the intellect — but he draws them —
binds their affections to God, excites them to
the practice of goodness by its clear exhibi-
tion. By the cross, by the truth that was
there vindicated, by the virtue that triumphed
there, by the love that endured all and failed
not — by these does the thorn-crowned and
the crucified draw us unto him.

What is the salvation which Christ gives
us ? It is not deliverance from material evil
merely — it is not mere freedom from outward
punishment ; it is deliverance from the evil
of our own souls, freedom from our debasing
passions, our impure desires, our sinful
hearts. He raises us to a strong virtue and
a blessed love. He saves us from our low
appetites, our degrading fears, our gloomy
doubts, and makes us happy, makes us good.
This is the salvation of Christ, and this is
the influence that emanates from his cross.
Go there ! Bow at its foot. Drink in the

92 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

spirit of him who is struggling there with
pain and death ! Imhihe that holy obedi-
ence, that blessed confidence, that universal
love — and then go forth, strong and free !
Oh ! often, often visit the cross of Christ,
that you may feel its influences, and rejoice in
its salvation !

The cross of Christ ! It stands there.
The body of the Redeemer has been taken
away. The crowd have dispersed to their
homes. The setting sun gilds it; the stars
shed over it their holy lustre ; and through
the silent night, it stands there, an instru-
ment of ignominy, and torture, and death.
And when the morning light falls upon it,
the people point to it as the wood on which
the malefactor died. But it is an instrument
of ignominy no more. From that hour when
he drew his last breath, it became a glorious
emblem, a sign of victory. Through the
ages it stands, the guide of the sinning, the
hope of the doubting, the rest of the weary.
Through the ages it stands. Many suns
shine upon it — night-like epochs roll their
starry lustre over it — changes go on around
it — but there it stands, the great manifesta-

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 93

tion of truth and love— the point of atone-
ment between man and God. The cross of
Christ ! The hosts of steel, the powers of
human wisdom, shall roll back and be
broken, but here is a power that cannot be
overcome — an influence that reaches the
heart, that exalts while it binds the soul.

Christian, cling to the once-despised, the
now-glorious cross ! Let it be to j^ou more
than a symbol. Let its life and its spirit
reign in you. Let him who hung upon it
dwell in your soul. Cling to the cross of
Christ— the sign of man's salvation — the
instrument that reconciles him to God !

RELIGION POUNDED IN CHARACTER.

A good tree caiinol bring forth evil fruit. — 3Iaft.
ii. is.

These words are significant of a great
truth — a truth of the highest practical impor-
tance. They declare, as we understand
them, that what we are is even a more essen-
tial fact than what we do — inasmuch as what
we do must inevitably follow from what we
are. They declare that principle is greater
than forms of conduct, inasmuch as all forms
are but scions, or branches, while principle is
the root, or, rather, the very vitality of moral
life. We may hesitate about the wisdom
and propriety of this or that mode of con-
duct, but of one thing we may rest assured —
a soul of radical goodness will dictate noth-
ing wrong. We may graft a lively and pre-
cious shoot upon some debased stock, and

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 96

we shall have either a scant and sickly crop
or no fruit at all. But " a good tree cannot
bring forth evil fruit." There is a healthy
vigor in it that thrills through every branch
and leaf, and from the very quality of its
nature, it will, it must, break out in a good
and abundant production.

It seems as if nothing was so misunder-
stood as religion — its real advantages and its
true objects. We are too apt to consider it
as a rule or form. It is a principle. We
think that we accomplish it in what we do;
whereas its chief result lies in what we are.
Men can pray, fast, give alms ; and all this is
easier than it is to live, and is nothing unless
we live. They can abstain heroically and
with most scrupulous caution from the com-
mission of wrong- ads, but this system of
negation is far less difficult than to love and
live and grow from what is right — to have a
disposition of positive goodness, whose pulses
throb through our very hearts, and from
which we constantly draw the breath of life.
Let us remember this, and strive to compre-
hend it, that we are religious in what we
are— that religion is a thing of character, and

96 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

not of mere aclion. "Be ye holy," is the
great command. " Out of the abundance of
the heart the mouth speaketh." "A good
tree cannot bring forth evil fruit." To be!
There is a profound significance in this fact
o( being-. It lies behind all forms. Il is the
cause of all things. Life is being, mind is
being, God is being. When, with reverent
curiosity, we ask of him his name — ask,
"Who is this central, all-embracing spirit ?"
— from behind the summer-cloud, behind yon
firmament of light, behind the ebb and flow
of ceaseless action, behind his awful attri-
butes, he sends back in majesty the compre-
hensive answer — " I am ! " Thus, too, do
we defeat the flippant atheist. Behind these
phenomena of nature, there is, there must
be, being-, else there could be no phenomena.
In beholding this universal nature, whose con-
stant and magnificent processions move all
around us, the spirit intuitively feels that
while something does, something is, which
thrills in the bursting buds of spring, robes
itself in the sounding waters, circulates in
seas of light, and buoj's up and penetrates
this all in which we live.

HOURS OF COMMUKION. 97

And if God is being — if his nature is
expressed by a name significant of this —
then man, considered in his highest attri-
bute, is to be considered as being — his great-
est privilege is to be. By being, we have
reference here to something more than mere
vitality, or sensation, or consciousness. We
do not refer to this element that goes out
with the breath of our body, although no man
yet has been able to tell what even this is.
But we do not refer to organic life by which
we are linked to the vegetable — nor to the ani-
mal life, which makes us one with the beast
of the field — but to that which is related to
man's spiritual nature. Man has a higher
being than that which circulates through
his physical organism, or lies in nerve and
bone. Doesnot Scripture assert this? When
he was moulded from the new-born earth, the
peculiar and crowning act of his creation made
him "a living soul." It is his being as a.soul,
as a mind, as a spiritual and intelligent
entity, to which we now allude. And this,
we affirm, is the highest and profoundest
view that we can take of man. Viewed in
this light, he is being in the same sense in.

98 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

which God is being. He is — hack of what
he does. His works are a manifestalion of
■what he is ; but without that spiritual life
within the tree there would be no fruit. In
the consideration of man, then, that bein^
becomes the all-esseulial point. Whatever
tends to its welfare, its development, its
beauty, its perfection, is life in a higher
sense than mere sensation or consciousness
— whatever degrades, contracts, pollutes this,
is death in a more awful sense than the
extinction of the breath and the stopping of
the pulse.

Does not this view give an important
meaning to some of the most prominent
declarations of the Bible? How much is
said by Christ about life, which we feel
cannot be this mere life of the body ! How
much is spoken concerning c/caiA, which is
not the element of physical dissolution, but a
moral darkness and force which closes about
the affections and powers of the soul ! " In
the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt
surely die." " I\Iy son that was dead is alive
again." " You hath he quickened who were
dead in. trespasses and sins." Here is the

HOURS or COMMUNION. 99

meaning of that death — it is the death of
trespass and sin — it is spiritual death. Men
all around us are slumbering in the lethargy
of sensuality, in the dust of the earth, wrap-
ping their grave clothes about them still
closer in their dreams. This is death — a
deterioration of our highest being. It is sub-
traction from our spiritual power and enjoy-
ment. It is a darkness of this world bound-
ing our vision with the doors of the tomb,
overcoming our faith by the shadow of these
c'oors. It is a gravitating power plucking
us downAvard from communion with God.
It is a selfish temporality, cutting the cords
that bind us to holy sympathy and universal
love. It is a night, black as that which
broods in the chambers of the sepulchre,
driving us out from the presence of the
Father — now cheating us with fitful gleams
of pleasure, now shutting down in tremen-
dous darkness — leaving us tossed by storms
of passion, and frightened with a sense of
alienation from God. When a man is in this
state, look not for outward signs of dissolu-
tion— look pot for the sealed eye, the dumb
lip, the motionless hand. Look, if you can

?^5'?1^6

100 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

into his soul — into his very being — and con-
sider the state of that. He is dead !

And the life of which Christ speaks, is it
not the reverse of this ? It is not this life
that throbs in the beating of our hearts, that
thrills with joy upon nerves to-day, that ache
in pain to-morrow. It is not this life that
the weary pilgrim lays down to be at rest.
It is not this life that the poor slug of sen-
suality deems the all — that the felon pants
for in his hour of doom. It is not this life, so
rife with pleasant things, so full of tender
ties, and yet so changeful in its proces-
sions, passing through sunshine and shower,
crowded in a narrow space, with departed
hopes and coming fears hovering around it.
The life that Christ came to bestow is the
life of the soul — is eternal life. It is knowl-
edge of and communion with himself and
God. It is the unfolding of attriliutes within
us, like those manifested in God, and which
belong to His nature. It is the elevation of
reason, the hallowing and expanding of
love. It is that process by which the spirit,
it knows not how, feels that it is stronger ia
goodness and in all true power ; feels that sin

HOURS OP COMMUNION. 101

and sorrow and death have no victory over it
— for it is intimately allied to the Deity.

That the death and the life thus spoken of
are of the deepest importance, then, no one
can doubt. Jesus evidently insists upon the
last as a very prominent fact in his mission,
and it is so mentioned throughout his teach-
ings that "we cannot call it a mere casual or
metaphorical expression. It is, evidently, an
essential element in the nature of the true
Christian. " Ye will not come unto me that
ye may have life," is his sorrowful rebuke to
those who reject him — while, to those who
obey him, his triumphant assurance is that
whosoever liveth and believeth in him shall
never die.

To apply this to what has gone before, we
remark that life is the attribute of being —
it is being. Our words, our deeds, do not
live^ in the strict sense of the term. It
is we from whom these words flow, these
actions originate, it is we who live. All the
importance, then, which there is for us in
this idea of life, eternal life, upon which so
much stress is laid m the Scriptures, applies
to us not immediately in what we do, in

102 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

what we say, but in what we are — in our
spiritual state — in the principles from which
we live and act. We are in a condition of
life or death, not merely as we do, or do not,
this or that good act, but according as we are,
or are not, in ourselves, essentially good.

We alluded in the commencement to mis-
takes that exist in regard to religion ; and by
recurring to this subject our idea may be
made more plain and impressive. W^hat,
then, is religion ? We reply, it is goodness —
it is the right condition of ail our affections
and desires. But is it not too often the case
that men are anxious about what they shall
do, or rather how little they shall do, in order
to be entitled to the name of being religious?
Do they not set apart from general life, a cer-
tain round of duties, calling them relig-ious
duties, and when they are performed, deem
that by the mere discharge of tliese duties
they are religious? Do they always see
clearly w^hy they should perform these duties?
Is not religion, with them, a vague idea,
attached to prayer and fasting, and Sabbath-
keeping, and creeds — and certain things that
they are to do, and certain things that they

HOURS OF COMMUNION.

are not to do ? Do they not speak of religion
as though it were some inexplicable charm
that penetrates and broods in the soul— a
something isolated and mysterious — they
know not what it is ? We say to such that
not in doing merely, but in being, does reli-
gion consist. Do we utter a strange propo-
sition, when we say, you may go through the
formal round of every duty incumbent upon
man, and yet, in fact, be no more religious
than he who neglects these forms of duty ?
The Pharisee stood up in the temple to pray,
and repeated the long catalogue of his good
deeds. He told of his alms-giving, his fast-
ing, his tithe-paying. Ah ! there was more
religion in that single " God be merciful to
me a sinner," that broke from the lips of the
publican. This was the moving of life —
this Avas the outgushing of his very nature in
penitence and prayer. It made its own
forms. It chose no set rules. It came peal-
ing from his lips and running from his eyes,
and every tear was a sacrifice, and every
word a prayer ! Let us be careful what we
are — let us see to it that we have the life
within — and little fear is there but we shall

104 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

do right. "A good tree cannot bring forth
evil fruit." " Make the tree good and his
fruit will be good."

Religion, then, consists in being good — in
having right affections. It is a principle, a
life within. All good deeds issue spontane-
ously from It, as precious fruit from the
healthy tree. All natural results are spon-
taneous. The diamond sparkles without
effort, and the flowers open impulsively
beneath the summer rain. And true religion
is a spontaneous thing — as natural as it is to
weep, to love, or to rejoice. No stiff, cum-
brous, artificial form can be substituted for
it. The soul that possesses it, breathes it
out in good words and good deeds, from
a natural impulse. It rises to God in devo-
tion, it flows out to man in kindness, as nat-
urally as the dew-drop rises to the sun, or
the river rushes to the sea. It acts not from
mere interest, or fear. It is seraphic exalta-
tion of being, throbbing in harmony with the
will of God, from which right action follows
as a matter of course. As God does good,
because he is good, so does the truly reli-
gious soul.

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 105

Surely, it is not necessary for us to say,
that we have not been opposing forms. If
any fear this, let them turn to our first
chapter, where we argue for the benefit and
the necessity of forms. We have not been
teaching antinomianism — but that forms are
not, of themselves, religion. They are
developed by it, they may re-act upon it —
but they are not it. Wherever it exists,
forms will appear. The fruit cannot exist
without the tree, but the good tree will
bring forth fruit. Apply, then, to your heart
oh, reader, in this hour of communion, the
great practical question — "What am I?"
" What is my spiritual state ? Is it love,
and joy, and communion with God? Is it
true and eternal life ? " If so, then go forth
and your deeds will all be right — your modes
of conduct, will all be right. For " a good
tree cannot bring forth evil fruit ! "

THE GREAT EXEMPLAR.

Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of
our faith. — Heb. xii. 2.

This is the Christian's aim and model.
This is the object that, beyond all the rest, is
set for his fixed regard and study. Life's
experiences are various, but this must be
seen through them all. In the season of
prosperity and peace, still to this must we
look. In the darker hours, in the garden of
anguish, still must we look to Jesus, the
Author and Finisher of our faith; not alone
for the sake of learning the great lesson of
endurance, but, beholding the light that
streams from the open sepulchre, we shall
find lliat he has consolations too, that the
world can neither give nor take away. In
the battle of temptation, under the burden of
sin, through the night of sorrow, in all the

HOURS OF COMMUNION, 107

soul's wants and discipline, look unto Jesus,
the Author and Finisher of our faith !

The great object of life is the discipline
and perfecting of the soul. Let not this
come to us as a duU truism, having no inter-
est, if any meaning. We repeat, the great
object of life is the discipline and perfecting
of the soul. To many, what so real and
solid as these material existences 7 The old
mountains — the rivers that run continually to
the sea — the palpable earth — the solar sys-
tem. What more real than this bustling,
every-day world — trade and commerce — gold
and silver ? To speak of the souVs interest,
amid the tumult and apparent permanence
of all these, does it not seem like speaking
of some mystery for which we have little to
care, and less to do ? But could we unsettle
our present notions, somewhat — could we
escape from this iron habit of materialism
that engirds our reasoning, and look upon
what is real and lasting, our estimate of
things would be much changed. We should
discover that these outward circumstances
are very uncertain and deceptive, and that
the soul is the only real thing among them.

108 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

A shock — and this solid earth might be
crushed to atoms — reduced to impalpable
gas — with all its processions of toil and
traffic, and all its seeming substantialities.
By " a run of luck," as it is sometimes
called, your house is filled with treasure — by
a shock of misforture it is scattered to the
four winds of heaven. And yet, j^ou virtu-
ally call these interests real and supreme!
Where is their reality ? In what consists
their supremacy ? The soul and the soul's
interests are real and supreme ! The meat
that perishelh not — the bread, eating of which
we never hunger — these are real and su-
preme !

Has it ever occurred to you, my reader,
that all this outward order of things derives
its real value and significance from the exis-
tence of the soul ? Has it ever occurred to
you that these are important only as they
instruct and discipline the soul ? Did you
ever regard your daily labor as filled with
spiritual meaning — as a great moral lesson?
Did it ever occur to you, that every time you
resist a temptation, every time you prefer
right to gratification, you confer upon yout

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 109

own soul peace and dignity, that give you
more joy and strength than any acquisition
of money can impart? Yes; doubtless you
have experienced this. At such times, there,
within, you have enjoyed a reward that made
the outer world, beautiful as it is, look
brighter. Allow us to make use of this com-
mon experience, for illustration. If you have
enjoyed once, or occasionally, such an expe-
rience, what would be the result, if always
you should feel so, in the very depths of your
nature? Would it not be a rich remunera-
tion for sorrow, and sacrifice, and suffering ?
Would not your path be bright before you in
the very hour of disappointment? Would
not your heart be calm even though your eyes
wept?

As is the state of mind, then, as is the
soul, so are we, or are v/e not, truly happy
and strong. The murderer cannot look up
to the bright sky, and sympathize with its
purity. The angry, hateful soul, cannot
comprehend the love that pervades the uni-
verse. But, if outward things are real and
supreme— if there is no soul, or if it is but
little matter what the condition of that soul

110 HOURS OP COMMUNION.

is — why should the outward universe appear
so strange and sad to those who are evil and
tormented within? Surely if the outward
world is the greatest reality — it will soon
drown all qualms of conscience, all stings of
guilt. But it is not so. The inner life,
with its thoughts, its conscience, is supreme
after all. Its voice is heard above all out-
ward tumult — it projects its light or shadow
upon the universe. The natural world is at
once its instrument and its instructor. As
we become true to our belter nature, loving
and good, so do we learn how to use the
world aright — so do all the ordinances of life
appear to be established for great and wise
purposes. The day is not only for labor, and
the night for rest ; hut every hour and every
event is that Ave may learn to trust and
adore God, and to love man better — that we
may love the good and hate the evil — may
have faith in adversity, humility in success,
penitence for sin, strength in weakness, and
support in death. This is the great end of
life. Not that we may grow gray in toiling
to heap up much gold, or in the pursuit of the
honors and pleasures of threescore years and

HOURS OF COMMUNION. Ill

ten. Threescore years and ten ! Were all
these adaptations created merely for a life of
threescore years and ten ? Are these heavens
so garnished with beauty, is this earth so
varied and fertile, merely to gratify that which,
in a little while, will die and return to dust?
Is it all to pamper a body that presently
becomes weak and diseased and crumbles back
to its elements ? Or does this beauty without,
speak to a capacity for beauty within? Do
these wonderful works appeal to a power of
knowing and progressing, that shall know and
progress, when its mortal tabernacle shall be
lost in the processes of change ? If this life is
all, much is there in it that is incomprehensi-
ble. We cannot comprehend why we should
desire to know, and never be satisfied with
knowledge — why we should be tempted and
suffer. But if there is another_life, we can
discern a reason for these things. In the
fact that we attain to no complete knowledge
now, but only such as deepens the capacity
and the thirst for more, there gleams out the
deeper fact that we shall know more by and
by. Powers are developed here until they are
capable of higher development in other por-

112 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

tions of God's limitless universe — and suffer-
ing and temptation discipline the soul for a
sphere where temptation shall no more be
needed, and where the spirit shall go for-
ward to practise upon what it has learned.
Viewing this life, tlien, as the vestibule and
preparation for another, we can account for
many of its mj'steries. But if not, why then
does the body suffer from the wants of the
mind 7 Why, if this world is merely a the-
atre for human fame, or human pleasure,
merely a mart for the heaping up of gold and
silver — why do we think of immortality or
care for it? Why do the mountain-summits
seem near to another world ? Why, from the
depths of night, from worlds of unapproach-
able glory, come influences that kindle aspi-
rations for something higher and purer ?
Why do we fancy the loved and the lost
walking upon some glorious shore with
palms about tlieir brows? Why do we
truly honor an upright man more than a
king, and see in patient endurance and for-
giving love the highest dignity and the best
victory? Why are prayer, and goodness,
and faith, so much more worthy in our eyes

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 113

than mere bodily skill or beauty ? Because,
we do not cease to be, at the grave — the out-
ward things of this life are not our chief
ends — but our true end is spiritual perfection
and immortal life !

We have dwelt long upon preliminaries
here, because they are of the utmost impor-
tance. We must become convinced that the
soul's interests are real and supreme, before
we can act earnestly for the advancement of
those interests. When we see that spiritual
growth and perfection is indeed the great
object of our being, when we realize this,
truly realize it, can we fail to act upon it ?

But now occurs the great practical ques-
tion— how shall we act — what standard of
excellence shall we adopt? The answer
comes to us, "Look to Jesus, the Great
Exemplar, the Author and Finisher of our
faith." This is an injunction which we shall
comprehend, precisely as we comprehend
the worth of the soul. Nature could not
lead men to the highest development of their
spiritual natures. They needed, for this, a
spiritual model, which, embodied in mortal
clay and linked to human conditions, should

114 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

live out the great lesson of spiritual growth
and perfection ; should resist temptation ;
meet sin and overcome it ; endure suffering
and submit to the v;ill of God ; be hated and
yet love its enemies ; through the circum-
stances of earth hold communion with the
Father ; be surrounded by sorrow, and yet
have faith; be despised, rejected, and cruci-
fied, and yet do good even to the unthankful
and the evil. Therefore. Jesus came. In-
vested with divine authority, and anointed as
the Christ, he laid his infant head in a man-
ger. What a lesson of humility ! He threw
aside his personal attachments and went out
to do his Father's work. What an example
of self-sacrijice and devotion to duty ! Poor,
not having where to lay his head, he minis-
tered to all the needy, lifted up the boAved
down, comforted the sorrowful, healed the
diseased, tauglit the erring, invited the sin-
ning, and confirmed the penitent. What a
life of goodness ! At last h^ bowed his
head to a thorny crown, submitted to a robe
of mockery, and was crucified praying for
those who pierced him. What a revelation
of spiritual greatness and triumph ! Three

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 115

days he lay in the tomb. The cross stood in
ignominy over it — the shadow of an awful
doubt lay upon it, and then he rose from
the dead, threw aside its cerements, and
opened its doors. His life became a
gospel to all men. His cross was, hence-
forth, the symbol and the agent of recon-
ciliation, the altar of penitence, and the
hope of the sinning ; and into his sepulchre
the mourning look, like Mary, with tears,
and like Mary go away comforted — and Faith
stands there forever — and the believer sinks
now into the arms of death as into the arms
of sleep, because his Lord has risen. What
a manifestation of the triumph of good over
evil — of the rewards of a perfect life — of
the superiority of spiritual things !

And thus to all men is the question
answered, how shall we grow in spiritual
excellence? Jesus is the great Exemplar!
It cannot be too often urged upon us, that he
is the manifestation of a true spiritual life,
and as such is to be studied and imitated.
Not merely what he said, but what he did —
not merely his precepts, but his whole con-
duct—we are to place before us as a pattern.

116 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

This is the great revelatioa from heaven.
Let us not read with dull apprehension his
gospel — let us not merely learn by heart its
moral precepts. Let us commune with his
spirit. Let us study, with intense and con-
stant interest, his life, his character. Let
this be a frequent thing with us. In ihS
hour of communion especially, when we are
about to go to the Lord's supper, or when we
retire from it, let us study Christ until we
breathe something of his holiness, and dis-
cern something more of his spiritual excel-
lence. Oh ! in the maze of doubt and the
din of controversy, the earnest heart often
asks, " How shall I be religious ? — what is
religion ? I feel the greatness, the suprem-
acy of spiritual interests — how shall I ad-
vance those interests — how grow in divine, in
eternal life." The answer is, look to Jesus !
Not in human theories, not in complicated
and mysterious expositions, but in his simple
life are the standard and the rule. Study
that life, strive to imitate it. Like him, be
humble, self-sacrificing, true to duty. Like
him, cherish love to all— even to the offend-
ing. Like him, bow meekly to j'our lot —

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 117

have faith ia affliction Like him, go forth to
be and to do good. And the reward shall be
yours. Every act of obedience shall make
the soul strong, every scene of trial shall
become a field of victory, every instrument
of shame shall be converted into glory.
Your joys shall be sanctified to you — your
sorrows shall be as ministering angels.
And the doors of death shall open up to
heaven !

THOUGHTFULNESS AND
MEDITATION.

And Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the
even-tide. — GtJi. xxiv. 63.

AxD who will pass through the vicissi-
tudes of this world, without meditation?
The same universe that was around Isaac, is
around us. AVe tread the same earth— the
same heavens sparkle above us. And when
the hush of even-tide shuts down upon the
noisy world, and cares, and passions, and
labors all grow still, often must there be
excited, thoughts the same as those which
sprung up in his mind three thousand years
ago. He must be careless, indeed, who never
meditates — who never calls in his thoughts
from their wanderings and their daily occu-
pation, and turns them into the channel of
serious reflection.

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 119

And yet this is the true spring of sincere
religious life. These " hours of communion "
let in the air and light of heaven upon the
soul. The cause of sin, of the lack of reli-
gious life and interest, may it not be found in
the thoughtless habits of the many ? Sin,
generally speaking, is not premeditated ; or,
rather, it issues from lack of meditation.
Take one wicked practice, for instance — pro-
fane swearing. Let a man sit down and
reflect seriously upon the evil of this habit.
Let him consider its absurdity, its ingrati-
tude, the irreverence that it displays, the
slight it puts upon God, its utter vileness
as well as uselessness — let him frequently
meditate thus upon it, and he would not
swear so freely, nay, we venture to say he
would leave it off. Every oath he should
speak would be a rebuke, and many a blas-
phemy would be arrested ere its utterance.
So with any habitual sin. Let it once
become the subject of serious and candid
thought, let it be revolved in the mind in the
light of reason, conscience, and the word of
God — and its power would be weakened and
broken. At least, they are few who would

120 HOUES OF COMMUNION.

deliberately continue in it, or adopt it from
avowed choice. We do not consider sin in
its true light — we do not reason upon it — we
do not bring it under prayerful inspection —
we thoughtlessly yield to its impulses — we
plunge recklessly forward without halting to
consider our course, without reviewing our
life — and it cleaves to us in our eager and
restless journey, as the dust and the mire.

This lack of meditation, is, moreover, the
cause of the lack of religious life and inter-
est. We do not lack interest in other
matters. We are busily engaged in our
pleasures and in our daily enterprises. But
religious life and devotion is an extensive
want among us. We fear that they are com-
paratively few who act from the highest
motives of religion — who make its ends the
chief ends of life— whose great care is for
spiritual advancement, growth, love, holiness,
virtue. And tlie reason is that we do not
enough consider the value of these things.
We do not make them present and real to
ourselves. They seem to us mysterious and
abstract. We need, then, evidently, more
thoughtfulness as to these matters. Surely,

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 121

if they are true, if they are real, there is
nothing of so much importance. Our gains
and pleasures are but little, compared to our
growth in intrinsic goodness, in solid virtue.
Those we shall lay aside in a little while,
but these are possessions that we shall carry
with us forever. God, heaven, eternal life,
these are great truths — but are we familiar
with them? In one sense, it is probable that
we are familiar with them. We have heard
of them from Sabbath to Sabbath— we have,
perhaps, read of them from w^eek to week, or
even from day to day. But have we ever
brought our minds to bear seriously upon
them? Have we ever considered them as
verities ? Do we think of them habitually ?
Have they sunk into our souls and become
familiar and practical ideas with us — truths
of our owu experience ? How many depart,
after hearing a sermon, to revolve in their
minds its teachings— to think and act upon
its personal applications ? How many feel
that the commands of the Bible were ad-
dressed to them — that Christ died for them —
that all he taught and did was for them; and
that by every motive of love they are called

122 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

upon to imitate him, to serve God and do
their duty? We do not ask who knows
these facts ; but who feels them, intensely,
habitually, practically. We answer — only
those who meditate upon them — who devote
some portion of life to thoughts upon their
highest interests and most important obliga-
tions.

Meditation, then, is a most important exer-
cise of the mind. It is calculated to check
our sins and to fill us with a sense of the
reality of religion. Indeed, it is necessary in
all departments of life. The man of business
devotes a portion of his time to meditation.
He considers his means — he selects his
objects — he examines, from time to time, his
losses and his profits. Careless, indeed,
would that man be deemed who should go to
work without thought, and without thought
carry on his affairs. The counting-room of
successful enterprise is the scene of many an
hour of intense meditation — which is the life
and the efficacy of the after-action. And
thus with all great deeds — they have been
preceded by silent and earnest meditation.
The works of art that fill us with admira-

HODRS OF COMMUNION. 123

tion — the glories of human power and intel-
lect, these did not live for the first time in
their present material shape. They were first
in the mind of the artist, dismssed, recalled,
brooded over, shaped, fitted, until at length,
from the depths of profound meditation, the
work was evolved — the pyramid grew — the
statue rose in marble beauty — the poem
spoke to the hearts of men. How long did
Columbus vieditate, before he launched his
three small ships ! How eagerly did he
seek the evidences of a new world, and hail
the drifting fragments of an unknown shore
— ere he braved the sneers of men, the dan-
gers of the ocean, and the fear and discontent
of his companions! Meditation! It alone
has generated great deeds. It has suggested
the truths of the universe, and won the secrets
of the stars. It is man's high prerogative to
think — to examine, compare, and reason — to
trace out glorious conclusions — to unlock,
with patient thought, the mysteries of life
and nature — to give significance to all he
sees, and to reach through fragmentary and
superficial hints, profound and ultimate truth.
And so must we do, not merely as intellect-

124 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

ual but as moral, as spiritual beings — as
those who value, or ought to value, our reli-
gious interests as supreme. If we would
break from sin, we must meditate, often
meditate. If we would grow in goodness, we
must meditate. If we would live a true life
and secure our own highest welfare, we must
meditate.

And trulj'', there are subjects enough for
meditation. If we walk out in the fields at
even-tide, as Isaac did, they throng upon
us. As the earth becomes veiled in shadow,
and its objects mingle, our eyes and our
thoughts are attracted to other spheres, and
go abroad into the limitless firmament.
Compared with them, how insignificant seems
this life of ours ! How minute is our " indi-
vidual difference," in a universe where such
stupendous worlds seem like atoms of light !
How do our pursuits and our cares shrink
under the immensity of those suns and sys-
tems ! And as this earth, comparatively, is
but a dim speck, what is the worth of all our
toil that begins and ends Avith it ? And how
short is the life that issues from its bosom,
and sinks into it again, ere some of those

HOUES OF COMMUNION. 126

worlds complete their annual circuit ! And
yet, something within us speaks that we are
of more worth than all those worlds — that
we shall outlast them — that we shall rise
higher and shine brighter than they. And
we are led up to great thoughts of God
and immortality, and we feel that "it is
not the work we do, but the spirit we
work in," that makes us great or small.
And shall we not descend from this medita-
tion with serener spirits — shall we not be
stronger for the next day's temptations and
cares? Shall we not work more wisely
through all its hours ?

But that even-tide opens to us another
theme for meditation. It is the close of the
toilsome, careful day. Through its busy
hours we hare thought and acted. We have
been tried. And in all those scenes of action
and of trial have we done nothing wrong ?
Have we kept our spirits pure through each
conflict? Does the day's close bring to us
no account of the day's conduct that fills us
with shame and regret? Does its silence
summon up no memories of wrong word,
thought, or deed? Has passion had no

126 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

domination in our souls — has sin not entered
there ? Or, has it, on the other hand, been a
day of improvement to us ? Are we con-
scious of some temptation successfully re-
sisted— some sin conquered — some good deed
done 7 Blessedly will the shade of evening
steal upon us then, and we shall lay us down
to sleep happier than if we slept on laurels.
At all events, how fit a theme for meditation
is our growth or decline in virtue — how fit a
time is the still even-tide ! And how will its
hour of meditation strengthen us for the
morrow's action ! It has indicated our
short-comings that another day may correct
them, and its breathings of penitence and
pardon are full of peace for the future. Or
it has opened to us wider reaches of thought,
and deeper vistas of memory. It has lighted
up the forgotten lapses of life, and we have
beheld anew its strange vicissitudes. Dear
forms, kind looks, now shrouded and in the
dust, have passed before us — the sins and fol-
lies of life rush in upon us, not as messengers
of wrath, but as agents of warning and
repentance, bidding us turn from our evil
ways and live. And another thought presses

HOURS OP COMMUNION. 127

upon us. The thought of death— of the last
even-tide — that shall fold us in its shadowy
embrace, and in which we shall lie down to
our last sleep. Perhaps already we stand in
the dimness of that even-tide, and must, we
know not how soon, go out to meditate in
other fields of being !

Though in this course of remark we have
rather indicated the subjects and opportuni-
ties of meditation, than inculcated it as a
duty, yet we find in the consideration of
these opportunities arguments for the prac-
tice. We might specify other seasons ap-
propriate for meditation. All seasons of
opportunity are appropriate, and we should
bear about with us a habit of thoughtfulness.
This is the characteristic of the truly reli-
gious spirit — it is thoughtful — not gloomy or
austere — but thoughtful, considerate as to the
highest duties and interests of life. Yet
while every day and every hour should bear
a burden of thought, there are seasons pecu-
liarly appropriate to meditation. Such is the
period indicated in the words selected as the
motto of our chapter. The Sabbath too, is
an appropriate season, for then we put by our

128 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

secular cares, and rest. The time of afflic-
tioa affords an opportunity for meditation.
We should not suffer such a time to pass by
without thought on our part. We do not mean
the heavy thoughts of grief, for these will come
spontaneously — but consideration of the pur-
poses of affliction, the disciplinary nature of
life, our own spiritual need of such discipline,
and of the God who controls all tilings.
The time of sorrow is peculiarly a season for
meditation and prayer. So is the time of
peculiar prosperity.

The communion season and the communion
Sabbath, is a lime peculiarly appropriate to
this exercise. We have been, or we are
about to go, to the table of our Lord. And
is this a mere form with us — or do we live in
communion with him ? Do we only remem-
ber him, when we take of the broken bread
and of the cup, or is he constantly in our
thoughts? Are we his disciples indeed?
Do we possess his spirit ? Have we set him
before us as our great model, and are we
making it our chief aim to be like him?
And how far below him are we in moral
stature? Are we pained at the difference?

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 129

Oh ! there are subjects enough for us to medi-
tate upon as we come into his presence — as
we approach or retire from the outward com-
munion ? Let us make the occasion a season
of meditation — an opportunity and instru-
ment of divine life.

Meditation ! Let us practise it. Let us
often examine our own hearts — our daily life
— our relations to God and duty. Let us
retire from the mingling cares of the world,
the sensualities that engirt us and draw us
so mightily, and think of those realities that
pertain to us, and to which we pertain as
spiritual beings. And we shall go forth from
those hours of communion, strengthened and
blest!

CHRIST AFTER THE RESURRECTION.

And as Ihey thus spake, Jesus himself stood in
the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be
unto you. — Luke xxiv. 36.

The resurrection of Jesus took place, with-
out tumult, and without ostentation. From
the morning when he burst the bands of
death, to the hour of his ascension, all was
calm and natural. His interview with Mary,
his revelation of himself to his disciples, and
his after communion with them, close up his
mission like a summer evening that lingers
on the skirts of a day of vicissitude and
storm. It icas the evening hour to him.
His earthly labor was over, and he spent the
moments ere his departure to the higher
world in the sweet communion of friendship.

To some, it may seem strange that his
resurrection did not burst upon the world

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 131

like an earthquake shock ; and that he did
not go armed with his victory over the grave
into the very heart of that guilty city, and, by
his re-appearance to thousands, rebuke their
faithlessness and their sin. " This was the
crowning event of his mission," some one
may say — "why, then, was it not the grand-
est in its effects ? Oh ! that the multitudes
that saw him nailed upon the cross, could
have seen him rise and shake off his grave-
clothes, and come forth radiant from the
shadow of the sepulchre ! My faith, that
sometimes wavers now, would have been
confirmed thus by the united testimony of
thousands." But, in reply to this, let us
ask — is it certain that testimony would have
been thus united ? Is not skepticism, and of
all things the skepticism of pride and self-
conceit, always ready with its plausible expla-
nations ? Would not those who were unaf-
fected by the preceding miracles of Christ,
have rejected even this crowning miracle?
The reality of his death would have been
denied, or his identity would have been
doubted ; and to the testimony of the few
thousands, who were all that could have

132 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

beheld it at the best, the unbelieving world
would have said then that it was a fraud, a
sham ; and the unbelieving world would say
now, that it was the folly of a superstitious
age, anrl the tradition of a Jewish lie. For
all efficient purposes, then, the testimony
of five hundred is as good as that of five
thousand or of five hundred thousand. It is
not God's way to shed truth upon the whole
world at once — to burst upon the universal
mind with instant conviction. The revelation
is committed, at first, to a few. And often
must that few contend with all the fierce
prejudices, and sometimes fall martyrs to the
vindictive passions, of the race. Every great
truth has, in its day, been a falsehood to the
majority of the world. Why should we not
also lament this fact, and deplore that the
world could not have been convinced at once
of all truth? We answer again — it is not
God's way to reveal truth to all men, at once.
A few are selected to be its witnesses and
its martyrs, and it must force its way by its
intrinsic power and harmony. Thus with the
resurrection of Jesus. Enough was done to
make it known to a few ; they were selected

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 133

as its depositaries, to proclaim it as a fact,
seen and handled, while the world at large was
left to receive it from the credibility of the wit-
nesses and from its intrinsic reasonableness.
The account of Christ after the resurrec-
tion, as we have it in the gospels, is admira-
bly calculated to strengthen the credibility of
that event. We see, at once, that his disci-
ples were unprepared for his re-appearance.
They seem to have had but a vague hope of
his rising again. They are disappointed at
his death, sorrow-stricken, hopeless. As
Jesus walks wi'h them on the way to
Emmaus, they take him to be a stranger, and
artlessly relate their fond but blighted antic-
ipations, and hint dubiously at the report that
he was risen from the dead. And although
tlieir hearts burned within them as they con-
versed on the way, yet their feelings did not
suggest to them the truth that he who talked
with them was the very Jesus whom they
deplored. And even after the glad announce-
ment had been made, the incredulity of one
was removed only by laying his hands in the
prints of the nails and in the wounded side.
Here, then, seems anything but deliberate

134 HOURS OF COMMUNION,

fraud or overwrought fancy. The unosten-
lation with which Jesus rose from the dead,
and the calmness of his conduct, preclude
objections that might have been raised, had
he burst upon them in sudden splendor, and
made them delirious with Avonder. Their
unconsciousness of his presence and their
slowness to believe, testif}' to their credibility.

But it may be said, that this very account
of their slowness to believe and of their art-
less unconsciousness, is written by the inter-
ested party, to whom, instead of his enemies,
Christ is said to have appeared. In replying
to this objection, we remark, that it is here we
perceive the value of the narrative of which
the words quoted at the head of this chapter,
form a part. It is a natural narrative ; and
this argument from the naturalness of the
transactions connected with the resurrection,
■we deem a very strong one. It appears to us
that these accounts cannot be the work of
imposture. And if they are not fictitious,
then is the record credible; and if so, we
must give our faith to the great event which
it declares.

We say, then, that the narrative here is

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 135

perfectly natural. If it is a mere invention
it is an invention of most consummate skill,
such skill, we venture to say, as the writers
of the gospels did not possess. Look at the
remarkable manner in which the identity of
Jesus is preserved. In him who utters with
such tenderness the name of " Mary " — in
him who speaks with such majestic earnest-
ness— " Touch me not, for I am not yet
ascended to my Father " — in that penetrating
and convincing spirit which causes the hearts
of the disciples to burn within them — in that
poignant yet kind rebuke which he gives to
Thomas — in all this, and more, we recognize
the same Jesus that we have followed through
the toils of a brief life, whose words we
drank from the brow of Olivet, whose agony
we witnessed as we stood on Calvary. Here,
then, is a moral portrait, wonderfully like
life, consistent and harmonious to the close,
and it is either the invention of profound skill,
or the simple truth. Here is either the most
penetrating insight into character, steady and
clear, unperplexed by the most exciting
scenes, and preserving seamless the identity
of a most wonderful personage from the

136 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

beginning of his history to the close, exhibit-
ing to us the same essential characteristics,
the same greatness and strength after the
excitement of an awful miracle as before;
here, we repeat, is either such a consummate
skill delineating a character of the most won-
derful moral excellence, far above the na-
tional and temporal ideal ; or else here is a
transcript from nature — here is the portrait
of a real being. We can best account for the
delineation by assuming the latter hypothe-
sis. The character of Christ, which we
trace all through the gospels, we believe to
be nothing less than a transcript from reality.
Certain indications, certain minute details,
that never enter into a work of art, that are
found only in nature, determine us to the
opinion that the biographers of Christ did
not invent him, but that his character cre-
ated his biographers.* And we say that we
have exhibited the same character after the
resurrection as before. No bungler has

* See tlie whole ar!]nniient upon this point ad-
mirably carried out ill Mr. Funiess' work, entitled,
"Jesus and his EioLrrapliers." A most convincing
book on the internal evidences of Christianity.

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 137

come in here and pieced out the harmony of
a real life with the deformity of a legend.
That history which flows so naturally to the
sepulchre of Jesus, issues from it not in mon-
strous disproportion and with a different ma-
terial. Calmly and with a celestial purity it
glides into that place of shadows ; calmly and
with celestial purity it issues thence until it
is lost in the brightness of his ascension.
The same truth to nature that appears in that
last scene on Calvary appears in that inter-
view at the sepulchre with Mary.

For this reason, then, we value the portion
of the New Testament narrative that comes
after the resurrection. We value it for its
manner — more than if it had recounted the
wonder, and fright, and excitement of a rising
from the dead. That, it is possible, some
one might have invented, and added to the
history of Jesus : but this calmness, this
peace, this season of affectionate interview
and counsel, is a manifestation of the self-
same Christ — is truth indeed, imbued with
the very spirit of Jesus.

And, after all, it is the spirit of Jesus, the
character of the Saviour, that furnishes the
highest proof of immortality. The material

133 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

ad of the resurrection, could we have seen
it, could we have felt it, could we have got
there before the ground was moistened by
Mary's tears and looked in, and beheld
that awful change come over the sleeping
Saviour, when upon that still mild face there
crept the warm flush of life, when the rustling
of his shroud affrighted the sepulchre, when,
with a thrill that made death's pale kingdom
shudder, he rose to his feet, and angels came
and sat there — could we have touched him as
he passed us by dropping his spicy cerements
in the new vigor of his immortality — Oh!
then, it is true, we should have had demon-
stration to satisfy this deep desire, this yearn-
ing hope within us. But now, as we have
not that demonstration, it is, we repeat, the
spirit of Jesus that makes immortality a
truth to us. We feel — everything deep and
holy within us feels — that Jesus could not
die forever — that such love, and truth, and
power are not of earth, are not the heritage
of death — but are celestial, undying, greater
than, triumphant over, all forms of matter
and of evil. When skepticism would blight
the hopes that spring up like daisies upon
the green sepulchres of our dead — when it

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 139

Strives to shake the rocky foundations of
the Saviour's tomb — when it would take
away the body of our Lord, and lay it, we
know not where — we will fall back upon this
truth, that the spirit of Jesus is immortal —
has no affinity to earth — and that something
that throbs in us, something that throbbed
too in the bosoms of our dear departed ones,
in sympathy with his spirit, assures us hu-
manity shall be immortal also.

This, then, is why we value the portion of
the New Testament that comes after the
resurrection. It helps confirm our faith in
that great event, because its exhibition of the
spirit of Christ testifies to its authenticity.
We may err, but it seems to us that Calvary
could not consistently have been the last act
of our Saviour's mission — even were it not
for the demonstrative character of his res-
urrection. The crucifixion called out all our
wonder, shocked all our nature, appealed to
all our affections. But had Jesus left us
thus, amid violence and darkness, we should
not have had a full representation of his
character, or a complete type of his mission.
Neither could we have left him at the grave.
Though around it, for all ages, should

140 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

brighten his assurance of immortality, and
Faith and Hope should linger there to tell
us " He icill rise ! " — better is it for us that
we hear those other angels saying, " He has
risen ! " Better, not only because of the
great Fact which it demonstrates, but be-
cause afterward there came a season of
calmness and of love. Mighty was that
scene of Calvary. Glorious was that un-
sealed tomb. But equally convincing are
that walk to Emmaus, and that interview
when Jesus said to his amazed disciples —
"Peace be unto you." It was consistent
with his great mission that thus it should
be closed, not in terror and in darkness, but
in sunshine and peace. It is right that we
should thus discover that the holy and beau-
tiful affections of our nature survive the tomb
and go upward. And as he was' heralded
into our world with love and joy, so not
from dark Calvary should he pass away,
nor through the doubtful shadows of the
grave. Not in conjiict but in rest was his
victory confirmed, and as he went upward
in the brightness of ascension, his last words
fell upon the earth in the peace of benedic-
tion.

CHRIST'S ABIDING PRES-
ENCE INVOKED.

Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the
day is far spent.— Z/w/.-e xxiv. 29.

These words are in close connection with
those which afforded occasion for our last
chapter, and belong to the same general sub-
ject. They furnish us with an instance of
that naturalness to which I have alluded as
corroborating the whole narrative. They
were spoken on the way to Emmaus. Two
of the disciples, in their walk to this village
from Jerusalem, were conversing together
upon the great events that had recently
occurred. It was natural that these should
be the themes of their conversation. Their
minds must have been wholly absorbed in the
transactions of the few days past, and their

142 HOURS OP COMMUNION.

grief, their terror, their despair, would sug-
gest nothing else. Under these circum-
stances Jesus drew nigh, and, unknown as
he was to them, fell in with the topic of their
conversation. He was, to them, a stranger,
but they felt his power. As they confessed
afterward, their spirits burned within them, so
that they could not bear to separate from
him, but constrained him, saying, " Abide
with us, for it is toward evening, and the day
is far spent." How natural, we repeat, is all
this. The face of Jesus Avas strange to
them, but his spirit had all the power of old,
and was familiar Avith every chord of their
hearts. How often has the soul been stirred
in this way ! The memories of old friend-
ship awakened by a tone, when the face is
seared by change and time ! How often
has the intuition of affection detected its
own in the voice, the manner, the senti-
ment, long before the more tardy perception
has had sufficient evidence for recognition !
Even with those whom we have never known
there often springs up a sympathy : our spirit
responds to something in another's spirit, we
know not what nor how. When the prophet,

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 143

the true teacher, speaks to men, often their
hearts burn within them, before they recog-
nize his authority or assent to his opinions.
In the instance before us, there were both the
intuition of affection and the sentiment last
alluded to— the sentiment that recognizes
true worth and authority — the sentiment
which the great mass of the people expressed,
when they felt that Christ " spake as one
having authority, and not as the scribes."
This description of their feelings, then, would
hardly enter into a fictitious or artificial
account. They knew not the stranger who
came to them in their sorrow, but they felt
that his words had power. And while their
hopes were buried in the tomb of their
Master, and their minds were disturbed by
doubts and fears, here was one who could
enlighten their minds by reason and by
Scripture, and encourage their hearts by
gracious promises, and therefore they felt
that that stranger was something more to
them than any ordinary man — that he had
an influence over them, such as only one
before had possessed— and their souls yearned
for his companionship. They could not part

144 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

thus on the threshold of communioa ; they
felt that he was the very teachej they needed
in their desolation, and they exclaimed —
" Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and
the day is far spent."

Leaving, however, the argument for the
truth of the record contained in the natural-
ness of this description, we purpose to make
these words the foundation of a few practical
illustrations. We have said that it was the
spirit of Christ, identical before and after his
resurrection, that moved upon those simple
and affectionate hearts and caused them to
yearn so for the seeming stranger. Reader,
with that spirit we also walk, day by day.
We see not the personal Jesus. We cannot
hear his actual voice, nor lay our hands in
the print of the nails or the wound in the
side. But the same spirit — the truth and
love that were in Jesus — all that gave him
influence and authority over his immediate
disciples — these are with us yet, waiting for
our ears to hear, our eyes to see, and our
souls to welcome and cherish them. Oh!
that they may make our hearts to bum
within us, until we say with these primitive

HOUBS OP COMMUNION. 145

disciples, " Abide with us." For, we may
say so now with as much propriety as they
did then. It is true Jesus cannot enter per-
sonally into our houses and homes, as our
guests and acquaintances do, and abide there
in actual, visible presence. But, we repeat,
the spirit of Jesus, his truth and love, may
enter our spiritual habitation, our heart of
hearts, and abide there forever. Blessed
guest, blessed habitation, if it may be so !

" Abide with us, for it is toward evening,
and the day is far spent." This, at least, we
may say at the decline of every literal day.
When the din and the fever of business are
over — when our pulses have become calm,
and in the peace of our homes we sit us
down to reflect — when we think of our respon-
sibilities and our weakness, our sins and our
wants, are we not ready to say, " Abide
with us ? " " Abide with us, that we may
feel that our sins are forgiven— abide with
us, for we see in the past our follies and our
faults and would do wrong no more — abide
with us as we lie down to gentle sleep, that
it may be pleasant and refreshing to us, that
pure thoughts may keep the portals of our

10

146 HOUE3 OF COMMUNION.

dreams, and God's blessing hold watch over
us!"

Or, while we are out in the activity of that
busy world — mingling- in its thickest con-
flicts, perilling conscience in its mazes of
passion — when the still voice within is
almost smothered by the atmosphere without,
and reflection is lost in the impulses of the
moment — then, when the good resolutions,
the moral vigor with which we started fresh
in the morning begin to grow faint — when
the length of the day has sorely tried our
principle, and its afternoon labors and cares
are beating upon our weary souls, then, do we
not need succor, moral succor, a reinforce-
ment and reinvigoration of principle, that we
may hold out and not give way at the last ?
In the latter part of the day, it seems to us
that the best-braced spirit, the purest mind,
becomes entangled in various interests and
cares, and heated by sensual contacts ; and
then, let us lift up our hearts, seeing how
near we are to a day's triumph, seeing that
if God will help us we shall soon lie down
on our pillow with the consciousness that we
have held out for righteousness and truth —

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 147

then let us lift up our hearts and say, "Abide
with us, O Jesus, for it is toward evening,
and the day is far spent ! "

And in other seasons, connected with the
evening hour, we may breathe this desire.
When in that still and shadowy time, we
pour out our spirits in prayer — when we are
pitching the tent of another day's journey,
and would lift up our souls to Him who
looks upon us, and whose purity is above us
like that pure heaven — when we would have
an hour of communion that shall kindle bet-
ter life in our hearts ; we may say to Jesus,
" Abide with us ; for the day is far spent."
So shall this prayer be a will for our future
lives, or the aspiration of our spirits, should
no earthly sun ever again meet our eyes.

" Abide with us, for it is toward evening,
and the day is far spent ! " This is pecu-
liarly a prayer toxoid age. Already the long
shadows fall before its tottering feet, and the
sun sinks lower to the horizon. The pulses
of desire beat more feebly. The plans of
young ambition have been realized or broken.
The relationships of life have been formed,
and many of them have been severed. The

148 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

contriving mind is growing weak, and the
vigor that could second its enterprises has
departed. The voices that the old man
heard in his youth, have, one by one, become
still, or if a few speak yet, it is with the
discord of superannuation. The hands that
grasped his so heartily, in days long past, are
now formless dust, except, it may be, a few,
which taking his with paralyzed tremor like
his own, say plainer than words — " My
brother, it is death that shakes us so ! " The
narrow valley declines before them. Old fa-
ther, mother, thou must tread it ! Thou canst
not even carry with thee thy dust-worn san-
dals, nor thy staff. Ah ! if thou hast Christian
faith, we know thy answer now. " I am not
alone ! I have one affection in my bosom
that cannot be disappointed. He whom I
love has sustained me when I knelt upon
familiar graves. He has drawn nearer and
nearer to me, as my aged eyes have become
dim, and all else seemed vanishing before
me. I know in whom I have trusted ! His
loving kindness will not fail me now. I see,
1 see, my sands are almost out and my feet
halt among unbroken shadows. I will cling

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 149

to him the closer. 'Abide with me, oh
Christ, for it is toward evening, and the day
is far spent. ' "

There is still another season in life when
this desire is peculiarly appropriate — a season
that does not always wait until the time of
old age, and that sometimes gives no warn-
ing, even by a shadow, of its coming. But
when we see that shadow coming, falling
deeper upon our hours, veiling the lustre of
life with its fearful certainty, and drawing the
curtains of evening about us, then do we need
the truth and love of Jesus— for it is the
evening of death, sometimes overshadowing
life's very noon-tide. When we lie on the
bed of sickness, and hope is given up— when
they say to us — " Take your last farewell of
earth, for you m;iy tread its green bosom, and
breathe its fresh air, and enjoy its pleasant
light no more," — when they that look out of
the windows are darkened, when the keepers
of the house tremble, and the strong men
bow themselves, and the grinders cease
because they are fev/ — v/hen the silver chord
of life becomes loose, and the golden bowl is
broken, and the pitcher lies shattered at the

150 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

fountain, and the wheel is broken at the cis-
tern—then, then, it is time for us to say —
" Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and
the day is far spent." But shall we wait
until then? Who knoweth but that it is
toward evening now, though not a shadow
dim the air ? Who knoweth but that the day
is far spent with us, though not many of its
golden sands may have fallen ? And look
up ! though life may yet be young, see how
high the sun is, already ! Take the scale of
threescore years and ten, and see how many
degrees of that circle you have run. One
half almost, have you not ? One third ?
Perhaps you are fast running towards the
close ! These years, these years, they fly
swiftly from us ! The day is far spent. It
is towards evening. The sun makes that
way. It goes not hack. W^hile we speak, it
goes forward ! And soon beneath the night-
shadow we must lie down and sleep. " Oh !
abide with us, blessed Saviour, now and ever-
more ! "

Or disappointment and death are fast set-
tling, or have already fallen, upon som.e cher-
ished object, some garnered hope of thine.

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 161

" Passing away " is written legibly upon it —
or, perhaps, it is gone ! Ah ! thou hast but
one resource as thy sorrow comes rushing
down upon thee. Thy day-dream vanishes —
thy pleasant light is darkened. There is
One, oh ! mourner, there is One, oh ! sinking
heart, who is watching over thee. Nay, long,
perhaps, he has wailed for thee to heed him.
Now cry to him, as the day of thy happiness
passes away, and the night of desolation
comes — " Abide with me ! Abide with me !
My hopes are crushed and gone. Abide with
me, for it is toward evening, nay, it is night
with me — the day is far spent, is spent ! "

" Abide with us, for it is toward evening,
and the day is far spent ! " Thus, as they
drew near the village, said the disciples to
the stranger who had joined them, and from
whom they now grieved to part. They knew
him not, but their hearts yearned towards
him. He had thrown around their spirits
the old spell. He had spoken as their Mas-
ter used to speak. He had kindled the light
of hope upon the darkness of despair. He
had calmed their perturbed spirits with the
breathings of divine promise. And now they

162 HOURS OP COMMUNION.

Stand, weeping tears of memory and grati-
tude, and in the glow of emotion pressed
their earnest invitation. He entered, and in
his " Peace be with you ! " revealed himself,
the Saviour whom they loved. But, my
reader, to us he wears no strange aspect.
To us he is already known. And yet do our
hearts burn towards him ? Are our hopes
centred in him? Does our life come from
him? And do not sorrows, vicissitudes,
death, linger around us ? Do not the evening
hours, in some form, approach for us all?
There is Christ, risen from the dead — come
back from the struggle of Calvary and the
victory of the sepulchre — waking among us
even now, though not visible, yet in influence
of truth and love. We know not when or
how the evening cometh, but we know, oh!
Jesus, that in this perplexing, uncertain, try-
ing life, thy presence is always needed, and
we will open our hearts to thee. Abide with
us now, and evermore !

HOURS OF COMMUNION.

We now draw this little volume to a close.
But we trust, reader, that its influences and
suggestions will not close with its pages.
We have hope that it may be the companion
of many serious hours, but we feel how inef-
ficient it is to supply the wants and to com-
plete the work that these hours v/ill suggest.
We trust that in the heart of every reader
there will be written thoughts which have
been suggested in these Hours of Communion,
with a dural)ility and an influence greater
than that which can be printed in books.
Let those topics upon which we have dwelt
so briefly and imperfectly in this volume, be
the subjects of meditation, when this is laid
aside or forgotten. Let our hours of com-
munion be frequent and habitual.

" Hours of communion ! " We mean by

154 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

this, times set apart for reflection and con-
templation especially of ourselves and of
Jesus Christ — not excluding all those topics
which pertain to our spiritual concerns. The
propriety and the necessity for this course,
have already been pointed out in the chapter
upon " Thought falness and Meditation.''''
Upon the benefits of self-communion and
communion Avith Christ, we wish to say a
little more. And first of self-communion.
There is no knowledge of such immense
importance as knowledge of ourselves.
Without this, we can have no clear knowl-
edge of God, of immortality, of all those
elemental truths which constitute the high
themes and sanctions of religion. We cannot
know the worth of that religion— we cannot
comprehend its warnings — its promises, with-
out this. These are addressed to an awful
spirituality within us, whose depths we must
sound by a searcliing introspection.

That this lack of self-communion is the
cause of sin, we have suggested in the chap-
ter already referred to. Recovery from sin is
gained by reflection, fallingback on reason and
conscience, enlightened by the truths of the

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 155

Bible. When the prodigal began to repent
and to think of a return to his father, he is
said to have "come to himself.'" And,
indeed, we always sin against our better self.
Sin is a kind of moral insanity, and if we
would only reflect upon the soul's true inter-
ests and ends, we should see the intrinsic
evil of it. Sin, then, will hardly be broken
off without self-communion. And not only
the man who wallows in vice, or breaks out
in violent guilt, but those who live from day
to day and from year to year, without serious
and profound thought upon themselves, they
are beside themselves, morally speaking.
Every thought of theirs, every desire, is
bound up in something of this earth — some
worldly gain or pleasure. And yet, within
them are immortal souls, souls that claim
heaven, that will be satisfied with nothing
beneath the stars. We feel this at tim^es —
all men feel it. We do sometimes ask these
momentous questions — "What are we?"
" Why are we here ? " " Whither are we
going? " Some shock of disappointment, or
some hour of thought, sends us in to ask
these questions of ourselves. Death strikes

156 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

down some beloved object that lately lived
among us. We look with tearful eyes on
the pale face, we wonder at its marvellous
stillness. We ask — where has that life
gone ? — where that love, that thought, that
excellence, which we admired and which
blest us so ? And then the curtain that sur-
rounds the grave and shuts us in to these
narrow materialities, is drawn apart, and our
thoughts go out to God and eternity. And
the lingering hour of sickness, with its hours
of painful watching, calls us to thought upon
our spiritual affairs. It may be the hand of
mortal disease, the season of death, steals
over us. Our eyes grow dim to the things
of this world, and we ask why we have
lived ? — and whither do we go ? That hour
comes surely on. The hands go not back
upon our dial. Its shadow projects towards
us ! Then we shall begin to ask questions
and to probe realities within us that we have
neglected amid the busy rush of life. Yes :
there are times like these, when all feel that
they are greater than this life and surrounded
with mysteries — that every star above us
indicates something beyond for us, and

HOURS OF COMMUNION. 157

every exhibition of true power and goodness
awakens moral capacities and desires within
us. Why not make this communion with
our spiritual self and with the spiritual real-
ities to which it is related, habitual and fre-
quent? Why not often consider these rela-
tions, these powers, these wants within us?

I do not mean, by this habit of self-com-
munion, that we should indulge in that mor-
bid anatomy of motives and affections which,
we fear, has given character to so many reli-
gious diaries, and overcast religion itself with
a gloomy complexion. The evii of this
course has been set forth by the author of
" The Natural History of Enthusiasm."

" There are anatomists of piety," says he,
" who destroy all the freshness and vigor of
faith and hope and charity, by immuring
themselves, night and day, in the infected
atmosphere of their own bosoms. Let a man
of warm heart, who is happily surrounded
with the dear objects of the social affections,
try the effect of a parallel practice ; — let him
institute anxious scrutinies of his feelings
towards those whom, hitherto, he has believ-
ed himself to regard with unfeigned love ; —

158 HOURS OF C03IMUNI0N.

let him use in these inquiries all the fine
distinctions of a casuist, and all the profound
analyses of a metaphysician, and spend hours
daily in pulling asunder every complex emo-
tion of tenderness that has given grace to
the domestic life ; and, moreover, let him
journalize these examinations, and note par-
ticularly, and with the scrupulosity of an ac-
comptant, how much of the mass of kindly
sentiments he has ascertained to consist of
genuine love, and how much was selfishness
in disguise ; and let him from time to time
solemnl}* resolve to be, in future, more disin-
terested and less hypocritical in his afiection
towards his family. What, at the end of a
year, would be the result of such a process ?
What, but a wretched debility and dejection
of the heart, and a strangeness and a sadness
of the manners, and a suspension of the
native expressions and ready offices of zeal-
ous aflfection ? Meanwhile the hesitations
and the musings, and the upbraidings of an
introverted sensibility, absorb the thoughts.
Is it, then, reasonable to presume that simi-
lar practices in religion can have a tendency
to promote the healthful vigor of piety?"

HOURS OF COMilUNION. 159

This, then — this nice dissection of every
motive, this scrupulous examination of every
phase of thought and feeling — is not what
wo mean by self-communion. But we do
mean the knowledge of our moral wants,
capacities, and relations. We do mean the
referring of all our actions to reason and con-
science. We do mean a supreme care and
diligence in keeping and advancing through
every action of life, the purity, the develop-
ment, the discipline of the soul. To that
end let us frequently pause, reflect, and
examine ourselves.

But, when we look in upon our spiritual
condition, we must feel the need of a guide
and a pattern, to which we may conform, and
in the contemplation of whose excellence we
may put off our imperfections. We need an
influence of truth and holiness that shall
subdue our evil passions, weaken and break
the bonds of appetite, communicate unto us
spiritual life and power, and draw us upward
to our highest capacity. To this end we
must look out from ourselves and commune
with Christ. This is one great end for
which he came — nay, this is the method by

160 HOURS OF COMMUNION.

which he saves us. He is an example of
what we should become ; and as we strive to
imitate him, as we grow like him in disposi-
tion, in character, we are saved from sin and
from moral imperfection. We must com-
mune with Jesus, then. We must take
hours of silence and opportunity, and study
his character, and examine ourselves by his
standard, and ])ray and strive to imbibe
more and more of his spirit. Then we
must go out to discipline ourselves, out to
trial and to practice, m the various spheres
of duty where we are called to labor. For,
our hours of communion are not to breed in
us an anchorite habit, but to make us stronger
for the trials and labors of life, through which
alone the spirit that we seek can be developed
and made perfect in us. Let our lives, then,
be made up of hours of holy communion, and
hours of loving action, or preparation for
action. Let us not live as entirely of this
world — let us not live as entirely apart from
this world. God grant, dear reader, that this
little book may be the means of some good
in 5'our heart and j'our hands ! And when
the last hour of communion is past — when
neither at the table of our Lord we commune
through earthly symbols with his truth and
his love, nor yet in the hour of reflection
examine and prepare for life's varied conflicts
— when these conflicts are all over, may we
meet in a more open, a clearer communion —
a communion of higher spirituality and beat-
itude with each other, with the just made
perfect, with Christ, and with God !

Wm

■■■:'-M (