But what was his first thought after he came to himself? "How many hired servants of my father have bread enough and to spare, and I PERISH WITH HUNGER." His son starving, while even his servants have plenty! Yes, thou art a son of God. He made man in his own image. He is the Father of our spirits. And yet you, his son, have been trying to be pleased and satisfied with husks,—with food fit for animals, and not for a son of God, a reasonable creature, gifted with understanding to know, to love, and obey your Father in heaven. Yes, like those meanest servants of God, the animals, you have tried to enjoy yourself by satisfying your inclinations and desires as you best could. You have never lifted up your noble faculties to the God who gave them! And yet in God's, your father's, house there is enough and to spare. Yes, abundance of mercy to receive you, of pardoning love to forgive you, of the blood of Christ to speak peace to your conscience, of the blessed Spirit of Christ to make you a new man in all your thoughts and wishes! But am I welcome to this abundance? you perhaps anxiously enquire. Hear the invitation:-"Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness" (Isaiah lv. 1, 2). But what, then, was his first resolve? I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants. And this, friend, must be thy first and thy fixed resolve. Whatever thy knowledge or whatever thy ignorance,-whatever thy open sins against God, or thy secret offences,— however dimly as yet you may see the truth you need to know, yet this resolve will conduct you to all. But, oh, how difficult to adhere to it! Satan watches to overthrow it. Your old habits of thinking will naturally return. Too many friends and acquaintances will advise you to keep your mind quiet, and not to trouble yourself with these thoughts now. Quiet! ah, they know not, who say so, the sweet quiet of an honest, a right resolve,-a resolve which we know God approves, which we know is the first step in the road to heaven,—a resolve which the Friend of Sinners teaches an awakened sinner to take, and a resolve to which, that Friend of Sinners, who alone is able, will enable the penitent who confides in him to keep. We have no room for more this month. Our parting advice is, be satisfied with nothing but truth: determine to know truth. Many may try to ease an anxious mind by delusions and superstitions; but if you are willing and desirous to know the worst, be assured that is the path to knowing happily the best too. Jesus is "the way, the truth, and the life;" and He says without qualification, "him that cometh unto me I will in nowise cast out." These are, indeed, encouraging words for him who takes the warning of A SICK BED. GOOD AND CHEAP GOVERNMENT. [We are sure that whatever may be the political opinions of any of our readers, they will admire the use which our correspondent makes of his, and that all true Christians will thoroughly concur with the chief object of his letter.-EDS.] Sir, I happened to see the first number of your excellent little periodical, and it pleased me very much to find that you did not despise and misrepresent the working-man's desire for political freedom; and I have noticed the same thing in other numbers, for I have taken two every month, one to keep and lend, and one to give away. And you will not perhaps object to my saying at once that I am a Chartist, and have been since the Charter came out, because I think, as even "The Times” acknowledged, that its six points are, at least, reasonable subjects for discussion, and I myself think they would be reasonable things to give us. But I only mention that I am a thorough Chartist, though a peaceable one, that my fellow-workmen may listen to me more willingly; for most of them, Sir, do like now to see a man favourable to what we think to be our rights. I have been thinking very much on the subject of good and cheap Government; for of course our Charter would do us no good if it did not get us that, and I have come to this judgment, that no Government can be a good one which is carried on by selfish persons, by persons, I mean, who will always have more an eye to their own advantage, and getting money and power for themselves, or their relatives, or their party even, than to the welfare of those they govern. Now, Sir, I am free to confess, that this view of the subject has a good deal checked the anger, the rage I may say, which I have often felt with our Rulers, for their management of the nation's money and business; for I could but see that unconverted, irreligious men, of all classes, for the most part abuse power to selfish purposes, when they have it. Not only those who are born among the rich and ruling classes, but servants, when they become masters, often make the hardest of masters, and even parents (such, alas, is human nature), in ten thousand instances, use their power over their families, and their incomes and wages which should support their families, very, very selfishly. So that, as I conceive, though it is no excuse for Rulers doing wrong, yet those of us that have the "beam" of selfishness in our own eyes, have need to pull it out before we can, with much face, censure our Rulers for doing what we should be as likely to do as they, if we were in their place. My next chief thought, Sir, is this, that true religion in the people is the surest way to get good Government. I do not, Sir, give up any of my political opinions; still I see that if they were carried out, they would only balance selfishness by selfishness, and the more powerful party would be sure enough, as they do indeed in America, to act just as selfishly as the ruling parties do in England. But, Sir, if Religion had taught the masses of the people to look upon selfishness as a sin against God and man which they were bound to resist and to mortify,— I say, if the people generally were watching, striving, and praying to "love their God with all their hearts, and therefore to love their neighbour as themselves," no rulers over such a nation could, for shame's sake, govern selfishly, no, not even if the Governors themselves had no religion. It is the selfishness of the people-sin-which enables Governments to continue selfish practices; it keeps selfish Governors in countenance, and it enables them to bribe their people's selfishness. While, therefore, Sir, I shall always advocate political views which I think right (and I wish those who differ from me honestly to do the same), I must, far more than ever, expect the political regeneration of the country to come through Religion, and I must think myself a Patriot as well as a Christian, in doing all I can to spread the knowledge of the gospel of Christ. Violent revolutions, we all must see, only turn working people out of work, and send tradesmen into the Gazette; they are as much opposed to the good of working men as they are to the religion of our blessed Lord. But, Sir, not the worst despot on earth could long hold in slavery a nation whose millions were enlightened, refined, and elevated in soul by the "glorious gospel of the blessed God." The true believer in Christ fears the face of no Ruler; for he fears not those who can but "kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do." He can bear any earthly trials and injustices with composure and dignity, because Christ bore them before him, and he thinks those who wrong him injure and degrade themselves more than they do him. He can, without bad temper, faithfully even, and kindly, expose the mal-practices of the wicked, whether rich or poor, rulers or subjects,—and after all it is cool, honest, and faithful speaking, which carries the point ten times more than clamour and violence. I could say much of this kind, Sir; but I only repeat that, in my opinion, in proportion as true religion spreads among the people, shall we get men for Governors who will have the nation's welfare at their hearts. But before I have done, I would just ask some of my fellow-men who despise the name of Christianity, what after all they can tell me of better better I mean now, as a cure for that curse of Governments and people, our universal selfishness? Has Robert Owen done it by his Socialist establishments? Can any communist scheme of labour get on at all for the one grand hindrance-selfishness? Selfish men all knowing that they get like pay however they work, will not work fairly, and the communists cannot make them. No, Sir, I would say boldly to all my fellow-men, Try, if you please, for generations, till you are tired of trying, you will find at last that ONE THING alone will save and bless the individual, and society too, and that one thing is to love and trust in a crucified Saviour. You may set selfishness against selfishness; but two bad things will not make one good one. But the love, the dying love of Jesus for guilty sinners, was good, and good only; and it was such an overpowering example of self-denial, for the good of the undeserving, that we cannot truly and heartily place our hope of salvation in his wonderful love, without having a measure of his love to men in our hearts too. How can I believe that the Saviour whom I love and worship, and hope in for eternity, laid down his very life for me, and then go and treat my fellow-man meanly and selfishly? But, Sir, I fear I have been too long. If you think these poorly expressed thoughts fit for a place in your "Appeal," I do hope they will be read with approval and profit by thousands of my fellowworkmen. I am, Sir, yours truly, A FRIEND TO "THE APPEAL." THE SINNER'S DOOM. "These shall go away into everlasting punishment."-Matt. xxv. 46. Who shall? Every unbeliever. Every soul that leaves this world without a new birth. Every one who does not see, love, and relieve Christ in his members. All who do not experimentally know God, and practically obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. Every prayerless person. Every Sabbath breaker. Every liar. Every swearer. Every drunkard. Every lascivious person. Every fornicator. Every one who lives and dies an enemy to God. Reader, what is your character? Are you included among any of the foregoing? If so, Jesus says that at the judgment of the great day you will be sentenced to everlasting punishment. Is not this fearful? Ought we not very seriously to think of it? Can we be excused if we trifle with it? But to what shall we be sentenced if we do? To punishment. To be driven to a distance from God. To be associated with devils and lost souls. To be shut up in the prison of divine justice. To suffer directly from the wrath of God. To endure the lashings of an honest, enlightened conscience. To be scourged with the most bitter reflections. To be tormented by Satan, who now deceives and misleads us. To be filled with black despair. To be plunged into a lake of fire and brimstone, which is the second death. To be punished in every faculty of the soul, in every sense and in every member of the body. To be punished in exact proportion to the sins we have committed, the light we have been favoured with, the privileges we have slighted, and the convictions we have stifled. To be punished under circumstances which will convince us that our punishment is just and equitable, and that God could not be just if he punished us less. This will shut the mouth, embitter the pain, arm conscience with the most powerful weapon, and sink us into the most fearful agony. But how long will this punishment continue? For ever!!! For it is,— Everlasting punishment. It must be so, for sin, which is the cause of it, will continue. Punishment never converted a soul to God yet, and never will. The punished will go on sinning, and sin will require the continuance of punishment. Where punishment is inflicted, no mercy is shewn, no gospel is proclaimed, no hope can be excited,therefore, no repentance can be produced. It must be eternal, for God who punishes is so. He is the eternal God. He will ever live, and while he lives he will hate sin; and while he hates sin, he will punish the condemned sinner. It must be eternal, for the worm that inflicts the most exquisite part of the punishment is so. "Their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." Conscience will ever live, and the fire will for ever burn. It must be eternal, for the chains that bind them are everlasting (Jude 6); the prison is blackness of darkness for ever (Jude 13); and the punishment is the vengeance of eternal fire (Jude 7). It must be eternal, for the sentence is. It cannot be repealed, for it is just. It dooms every impenitent sinner to go away from God, from hope, from angels, from saints, from ease, from happiness, and to go "into everlasting fire." Dear Reader, think of these things! Knowing the terrors of the Lord, I would persuade you. O think of eternal fire! O think of hopeless despair! And think that you may now escape these, for Jesus is able to save you; he invites you to look to him and be saved; and he promises that if you come unto him he will in nowise cast you out. Look, look then to Jesus! Fly, fly this moment to his arms! Fall, fall at his feet, and seek and obtain everlasting life! But if you will not, I protest unto you that you shall surely perish, and perish justly, too. New Park-Street, London. JAMES SMITH. RELIGION. 'Tis religion that can give Sweetest pleasures while we live : Solid comfort when we die. After death, its joys will be Be the living God my friend, |