Chapter VII: Part 7

Your pursuits train you to calculation; despise not the word, but keep it, and weigh it well. It is a noble word, and the calculus is one line of the Divine reason. God calculates,--he geometrizes--he seeks due proportion, and number, and weight,--he counts time, and the round of the seasons; and the paths of the planets point the days, even the seconds, on the dial-plate of the heavens, and prove the punctuality of God. Calculate well and as he does. The good Samaritan calculated when he took care of the wounded man, and the priest calculated as he left him by the road-side. Howard calculated when he gathered the statistics of philanthropy, and Arnold calculated when he sold his country for gold and ambition. Judas calculated when he betrayed his Master for the pieces of silver, and Jesus calculated when he asked, "What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?"

Among the great facts of our welfare, place the mind and heart, home affections, heavenward thoughts, and our business will have new blessings from Him whom we serve.

Summer in the Country.

SUMMER IN THE COUNTRY.

That was a beautiful and expressive ordinance of the Old Dispensation which enjoined a rural festival upon the conscience of the faithful. Every year the whole nation were ordered to pass a week in rural bowers woven of the boughs of goodly trees, in remembrance of the time when their fathers dwelt in the wilderness, and God led them to the Land of Promise. By the Israelites, the ancient festival is still remembered, and one of the most gifted of their modern writers thus describes its observance in Southern Europe.

"Large branches of the palm and cedar, the willow, acacia and the oak, cut so as to prevent their withering for the seven days, formed the walls of the tent; their leaves intermingling overhead so as to form a shelter, and yet permit the beautiful blue of the heavens to peep within. Flowers of every shade and scent formed a bordering within, and bouquets, richly and tastefully arranged, placed in vases, filled with scented earth, hung from the branches forming the roof. Fruit, too, was there,--the purple grape, the ripe, red orange, the paler lemon, the lime, the pomegranate, the citron."

This festival in its ancient form, Christians do not observe, although we may see some of its traces in the camp-meetings of Methodism and in the evergreen boughs of Catholicism. Yet its essential idea should, and does remain. Each year we are sadly dull and worldly, if the luxuriance of summer does not lift our thoughts to Him who sustained our fathers in their hard conflict with rude nature, and enabled them to change the savage wilderness into fertile fields, and peaceful groves. Grovelling indeed we are, if, upon our return from the pleasant retreats where we have sought rest and recreation, we cannot bring back some grateful remembrances of what we have seen and enjoyed in rural places.

The old festival, kept as it was by the whole nation at Jerusalem, in green tents, was a kind of annual consecration of the relation between the city and the country. Thus the feast had at once a special and an universal meaning. The bigot may have thought only of the years of wandering, when, in nomad tents, the chosen race escaped from their oppressors. But more enlarged and sensitive minds, of the race of David and Isaiah, interpreted the season far more generously; and we are assured by the presence of Him who went from Nazareth to take part in the scene, that some eyes looked upon those rural tabernacles which stood among the streets of Jerusalem, as emblems of the permanent relations which man should sustain to nature,--of the constant ministry of the works of God to man.

Our topic now is the relation between the town and the country, especially the power of rural life upon them who dwell in cities.

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We consider first the various objects which present themselves for contemplation. Cowper's contrast may have been too strong, when he said that "God made the country, and man made the town," for, in both places, we are surrounded by the works of God and man. The farm, as well as the busy street, shows what human toil can do, and they that live in cities are in themselves, and in the plenty that sustains them, constant proofs of the bounty of God; whilst upon all places the sunshine and the rain do fall with equal mercy. Yet, in the country, we see more of nature in its divine adaptations, less perverted by the artifices of man. The eye is not limited by streets and walls to some narrow spot, nor is the landscape curtailed of its breadth and beauty to suit the grasping policy of traffic. Generally the hand of rural art and labor rather interprets than obscures the plan of nature. The regions well cultivated are often the most picturesque, and at once charm by their scenery, and instruct by their varied uses and adaptations. We see man in just relations towards the soil as its cultivator, and towards the animal world as their master and friend. He lives in close sympathy with the heavens, the earth, the animated tribes. The sun in its rise, and course, and setting, counts to him the hours, and divides his times of labor and repose. He breathes the air as the Creator mingled it, and draws from the soil something of that quickening, vital force, which the great Mother never refuses to her children, who seek her. He enlarges the circle of his friendships more widely even than in metropolitan coteries, and has friends among birds and fowls; while, with the sheep, and horse, and ox, as well as with kindly neighbors, he can keep company. He is daily called to see the harmonious plan of the universe, the co-operation between light, and air, and rain, and dew, between all elements and all creatures in the universe of God. In fact, apart from any philosophical curiosity, the very necessity of his calling must make him not a little a sage in the observation of nature. When science is added to observation, the greater, of course, the privilege of his position, the more readily does he unlock the treasures around him, and his rural hours may be hours of favored vision, nay, of sacred communion.

But is not man the crown of nature? and where is man to be found in such perfection, as in the great centres where men congregate? If we would be wise, why not seek the great multitude and dwell most among the crowd? I will not disparage city life as a school of instruction in the science of human nature. He who knows nothing of the great market-places, and social resorts of his race, is ignorant certainly of our nature under very important aspects. But to be constantly mingling with men, is a very different thing from the true knowledge of man. The judicious analysis of a few characters will teach more wisdom than a superficial observation of ten thousand passers by, just as the dissection of a plant or an animal shows more of its structure than a glance at a whole kingdom or continent frequented by the same tribes. Human nature may be wisely studied wherever it is to be found, and if extent, as well as sharpness of observation is essential, we must remember that all men do not live in cities; that the country has its own forms of humanity; and moreover, that they who dwell among the great crowd, learn best in more quiet scenes to judge of the true meaning of the bustling life around them; and they that are wisest in their views of the busy town, are they who have been able to survey its characters and circumstances frequently, from the commanding elevation and distance of rural retirement.

Men and their arts, indeed, appear in utmost number and force in cities; but without the constant reinforcements from the country, the tribute of fresh energy and enterprise, the products of mechanical ingenuity, and of agricultural labor, the metropolis would soon languish, deprived at once of its daily bread, and its best intellectual resources. Even the beautiful arts, which adorn the homes and halls of cities, appeal to an eye and taste that ought to be well schooled in the observation of nature, and the canvas can never reveal its best meaning to minds conversant only with crowded streets and busy marts. If we must go to the city to see the gathered treasures of rural labor and skill, we must go to the country to learn to comprehend the affluence of the city, to understand the secret of its wealth, and to interpret the wonders of its useful and beautiful arts.

Surely, then, we cannot but recognize the worth of the country in respect to the objects which it presents. Its beauty, although in some measure expressive of the work of man's hand, is most eloquent with the glory of God. Its plainest utilities bloom into loveliness, and to a devout ear sing out in anthems. Its wealth speaks less of man's arrogance than of heaven's bounty. We might institute in this respect a comparison between the pursuits of men in town and country. They are in both situations toiling for gain, and in both cases more or less in competition with men, and in contact with natural laws. But in the country, men depend less upon shrewd bargaining, and far more upon the direct return of their labor in the products of the soil. They deal more directly with their Creator, and there is more constancy and security, if not so much excitement of hope and fear in their gains. Refreshing and instructive it is for those whose business habits lead them to look upon the chances of traffic as the source of wealth, to learn for themselves how much stronger security the Creator has given for the sustenance of man; and important as are finance and traffic, the best treasures of man come from the soil in return for his skill and industry. Surely the pursuits most habitual in rural life teach many a sober lesson to men fevered with the competitions of traffic. We might show also that the country may afford quite as valuable hints in the simplicity of its pleasures, as in the sobriety of its industry. They who are in the habit of regarding enjoyment as the result of some costly dissipation, need to learn of nature a stern, yet blessed lesson, and find that true happiness is not a far-fetched luxury, but is very near us, when we live near to God, and true to his laws. Wretched are they who make of their seasons of recreation but a new round of dissipation, and repeat the orgies of the winter in the retreats of the summer!

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It is often asked whether life in the town or the country is, on the whole, most favorable to the formation of character,--the pursuit of true wisdom, virtue, happiness. Without being obliged to take either side of the question, it is sufficient at present to urge the importance of guarding against the peculiar exposures of each condition; and especially, of urging people of the town to look well to the sins that beset them, and seek in the broad fields truths that they need in their own homes.

They live in the midst of excitement and need sobriety. If they have more intensity, they have also more fever of mind, and may take counsel wisely of those whose temper is more serene, if, perhaps, sometimes more sluggish, and whose habits are likely to be more equable, if in danger of becoming sometimes monotonous. We absolutely need the influence of rural life to soothe our spirits and calm our nerves. The pulse itself abates its fevered beat, and the heart is quieted down into harmony with the gentler pulse of nature. If the town offers stimulus to the visitor from the country, the country repays the gift by giving calmness, and thus the power of new energy to the visitor from the city.

A serene frame of body and mind is certainly one requisite of wisdom, and not the only requisite which rural life favors. We need to look beyond the horizon of fashion and conventionality, which we are so apt to mistake for the entire world, and correct our observations by careful notes of those forms of rural life, which, after all our city pride, we must regard as most expressive of the common lot of man in all nations and ages. The man who sums up all his views of rural manners in the contemptuous word _countrified_, will do well to remember that there is not a little reason to form a more contemptuous word in reference to such persons as himself, and call the fop, who mistakes his circle of loiterers for the human race, and his haunts of folly for the world of wisdom, as sillier than the simplest rustic, farther from the true mark in being _citified_ than the latter in being _countrified_. They that dwell in crowds very easily become very knowing, but not necessarily wise. They that frequent the haunts of vice and frivolity learn many things that do but add to their folly. They do not view life in its best aspects and true aims, nor interpret it as its Divine Author teaches. Even those whose minds are open to the true science of humanity, need to flee from the crowd to ponder soberly upon its lessons. In the busy world, they are constantly finding seeds of thought, but in a far less troubled soil these seeds must be nurtured and matured. Probably the wisest meditations upon man, society, Providence, have been engaged in by persons well taught indeed in the ways of the great world, but ruminating in quiet upon its teachings, and correcting the prejudices of the hour by the sober reasonings of calmer scenes and influences. To such truthful judgment of distant things surveyed from its serener retreats, rural life adds a wisdom peculiarly its own,--a wisdom such as Solomon so sagaciously incorporated in his proverbs, and Jesus so divinely presented in his parables.

It would not be difficult to show the happy influence of familiarity with the country in teaching lessons of virtue--in bracing the frame for hardier labors--in urging the worth of the lesser ethics of frugality and economy, and the higher morals of true manliness and godliness. Virtue is moral strength, and is taught in every school that strengthens the moral energies. The genial air and simple habits of rural life favor manly fortitude, and a manly spirit. Poor would be the future prospects of our nation if they rested wholly with the dwarfed and fevered offspring of our cities. Our people would ere long lose their place among the nations, and would drop their heads in shame in comparison with men trained in hardy sports and healthful labors, as the yeomanry and gentry of England. Religion itself, which is the crown of true manliness, would languish if there were no more check to vice and skepticism than the check, strong indeed as it is, which metropolitan churches afford. How wonderfully the power of faith among the peasants of La Vendee withstood the sneers and threats of Paris, with its armed bands of Atheists in the great convulsion, when priests became scoffers and churches were places of rioting! How nobly our own churches have been favored by the words and thoughts of elect minds devoted to God and his truth, in peaceful villages away from the crowded marts! Where would the pulpit find the teachers that are needed, if its sole dependence were upon the youth reared in cities? I could not but think much of the power of rural life in raising up vigorous and independent preachers, whilst I was enjoying a few weeks of recreation in the lovely town in which President Dwight prepared himself for his more conspicuous ministry at New Haven. I have rambled with delight again and again over that noble Greenfield Hill, which he celebrated in a poem, and have not wondered that the vast and charming prospect, ranging as it does from the broad waters of Long Island Sound to the peak of the Catskill Mountains, should have made something of a poet of a theologian, sometimes so remorseless a logician. May we not see, however, in his theological works, and still more in the pages of his mighty predecessor in theology, Edwards, of Northampton, who, too, dwelt among scenes of singular beauty, ample proofs that nature never deserts her votaries, nor fails to breathe into them a spirit of beauty, that can live, after the harsh dogmas have perished like the husks that inclose the grain for the harvest.

I would not disparage our town life, nor call it by any means godless. It is happy in being able to command so many resources, happy in being able to ally to itself so many influences not its own. Where there are souls there God may be known, and where learning and experience gather their treasure; we may find light upon the ways of God and his Providence. But very poorly do we study this manifold creation, and the word of its Creator, if we limit our horizon to the streets and walls, and business and pleasure even of the greatest metropolis. The Bible itself--that book so full of the poetry of nature--from its first to its last chapter, from the Old Eden to the New Jerusalem exhaling the fragrance of fields and breathing the genial air of rivers and mountains,--lifting the soul to God by the contemplation of his works,--the Bible is a sealed book to us, if we do not always read its parallel revelation in the heavens and upon the earth. There is an expression in nature which must be caught, like that on a friend's countenance, from itself. Description is not enough, and the best scientific analysis, however valuable as an aid, is but a poor substitute for the original reality. God speaks to us still in his works, and what prophets and bards of old have heard, we may now hear. We may hear it perhaps all the more eagerly for the comparative rarity of the privilege. They that are trained in cities wisely yearn to breathe the country air, and in its diviner meaning, interpret the landscape. Pastoral poets and rural philosophers find their fondest admirers in such minds. Who has exercised this blessed ministry of the interpretation of nature better than Wordsworth, poet and philosopher at once as he is? With all their exquisite refinement, and their sometimes mystical sentiment, his poems are tinted with the hues of sky and mountain, lake and meadow, eloquent with the voices of the seasons, breathing the calm spirit of nature in its pleadings with the rebel temper of man. In how many of us they awaken blessed remembrances of our childhood, refresh us in our worn, anxious, and weary life as with the gush of living waters, and the sight of grassy meadows! Kind Heaven would not have us lose the companionship of nature, and has given us elect minds as well as glorious scenery to be its interpretation. There is peace as well as power in listening to such ministries. Nor do I fear to place upon this list, those men who have brought a fine taste and genial humility to the culture and adornment of the soil, the improvement of rural architecture and landscape gardening! What name deserves more grateful mention than that of Downing, that lover of nature and of the art that best interprets her ideal. I know of no village which does not bear directly or indirectly some mark of his mind, in the form of a cottage or school-house, or a garden devised after his idea. He has brought out the wealth of our forests, and in our summer retreat, many a tree that else had been cramped and hidden in the swamp has whispered his requiem to our ears.

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The course of thought which I have pursued regarding the objects and influences of country life, will find an answer in many of my city readers. We need no tent of green branches to quicken our remembrance of Heaven's bounty to us and our fathers in our relations to rural scenes. Our memory has a leafy arbor of unfading foliage, in which we may every day celebrate God's goodness to us in the gift of so noble a heritage, where we dwell and where we may visit.

It is not well to conclude these thoughts upon the influence of scenes upon character without urging home the truth, that our ruling principle is the main index and source of character; and he is sadly deluded who trusts to any position to secure his virtue or to excuse his vices. Apt enough we are to be discontented with our lot, and to burden fate or Providence with the blame that is our own. We imagine some more favored condition to be the sure warranty of success and worth. He who lives among the crowd ascribes to their example his vices, and he who lives among the fields refers his rudeness to want of better opportunity. Older than the Satire of Horace on human discontent is the wish of man for change of fortune, even as old as man himself. Better for him to make the best of what he has, and find his content thus keeping pace with his progress.

He that dwells in the country, while he should use every opportunity for enlarging his circle of experience by travel, must take heed lest he slight the privileges of his own position. He may fall into the vices of the town among the simpler habits of his neighbors, and be eaten at heart by the worst passion while breathing the purest airs of heaven. He must learn simple truth of a power above man, or nature will not save him from corruption.

He who lives in the city need not ascribe the evil that he suffers solely to circumstances, nor expect mental enlargement as the consequence of a cosmopolitan home. He must keep true simplicity in the midst of artificial conventions, and may narrow himself into an earthworm in the midst of the men and the culture of all climes and nations. He may be in bondage to a metropolitan mannerism which is quite as slavish as any provincial prejudice, and full as far short of a wise humanity as of a genuine faith.

Better counsel do we need than crowds can teach or nature alone can unfold. Wherever we dwell, we are to look to a kingdom not of this world, and by communion with its sovereign Head, elect Messiah and sainted intellects, we are to confirm what is best on earth by what is most gracious on high.

Still, though only in thought, need we weave our green bowers to tell us of the ancient march through the wilderness to the promised land, for still are we on our pilgrimage. Wisely do we keep the feast of tabernacles when we erect them at once in our remembrance and hope, looking upon the emblems of God's love for us in the past as the assurance of his love when the soul shall reach the river whose waters never fail, and rest beneath the tree of life whose leaf never fades, whose fruit never withers.

_August._

Returning Home.

RETURNING HOME.

Two commands God gave in the beginning and is always giving to his creatures. He bids them go forth and return, and the lives of all beings are divided between the two. The history of every man is but another version of the words, "He went forth and he returned." All his enterprises and all his results may be thus simply described.

It is so common, especially in our restless time, to dwell upon the more adventurous change, that the milder is apt to be slighted, and, bent upon advancing, we make too little account of return as a primal law of life. How can we fail to see it written on all things that God has made? It may be read upon every dew-drop whose summons back to the heavens the morning sunshine brings, and upon every flower whose gorgeous petals signal its triumph, and herald the retreat of its vital forces to the earth whence they came. Every rising wave murmurs also of an ebbing tide, and every beat of the pulse sends back as well as forward the current of life. The heavens--they bear majestic witness of Him who rules their hosts. The stars are ever returning upon their courses, and marking the seasons that time the periods of man. Insect, bird, and beast, follow instinctively the same great law; by their transformations, migrations and quickened or diminished vitality, they turn in the recurrent cycles in which all things have their round. In all ages, thinking minds have been impressed with this great fact. We see the impression in the early memorials of sober thought. The wise preacher brooded over it, as he spoke of winds and waters returning on their path and of there being nothing new under the sun. It haunted the visions of the sages of the Nile, and stands out to the eye in that serpent symbol which teaches from tombs and temples the circle of eternity.

Feeling themselves sometimes swept away upon this great current of events, inclosed in this serpent-fold of destiny, men have lost their proper sense of responsibility and sunk down into a passive fatalism. From this torpor God would ever arouse us, and have us see in the return, as in the going forth, the same providential plan--the same sphere of duty and privilege.

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How full of privilege is this recurrent aspect of things! Led by the hosts of heaven, the seasons walk their benign round, and in their course they are ever renewing most delightful relations of life. In the calendar of nature there are far more festivals than fasts, and, to a well-taught mind, the recurrence of the sadder times and scenes of the year brings thoughts more blessed than the world's reckless feasting. Spring and summer are always new and always cheering, whilst autumn and winter teach lessons and may nurture affections more precious than their gayer treasures. The text of nature has ever a marginal commentary taken from the book of the heart; and as the text is read and re-read, the commentary grows in size and interest, for each year's repeated interviews reveal nature and the heart more fully to each other, and give variety ever fresh to a friendship constant as the law of God. The great universe was made, we must believe, more for the home of rational souls than for the playground of giant masses and powers of matter. What aspect of its vastness is more tender than that which exhibits its majestic changes as waiting upon the discipline and affections of God's children; the great sun lighting the laborer to his work, and then withdrawing its light to send him to the welcome of his home and the peace of his pillow; the whole starry host joining together to make and mark the days and months whose returning recalls some pleasant face of life and Providence, makes childhood glad, or age peaceful.

Man himself has in his own being a periodicity corresponding with the cycles of nature. His active energies, his sensibilities, social and devout, his intellectual powers, have their recurrent periods. He is strangely ignorant of his own nature, who has not learned that there are times and tides within his own soul as well as with seas and stars. The plan of the benign Deity for him seems to be such as to secure at once constancy, and variety, and progress.

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Note well the constancy which God, the Ever Faithful and True, ordains for man by the recurrent order of his lot. He will not have life a chaos of scattered fragments, nor a stray meteor that follows no orbit. It must have its periods of outgoing and return. Whatever be our home, the object of our love or care, to that we must ever recur; and however capricious the humors, or eventful the career, every man's life falls into a certain circuit, and every heart revolves in some orbit by a law as sure as that which guides Arcturus and Orion. Man, indeed, may be so perverse as to abuse the law, but he cannot repeal it. He may give his heart to evil, and make his home with wickedness; but wherever he makes it, there this law finds him, and, in a round of habit good or bad, returns him after every wandering to his own place. Securing thus the constancy of his Providence, God teaches us to see the moral significance of the law of return. What a lesson is here upon the force of habit! Its power comes from God's own constancy, and woe to the man who inverts his nature so sadly, that evil instead of good walks in the appointed circuit. Every vice into which he falls constantly returns upon him, like the circling waters of the whirlpool, which run round and round until lost in the dark deep. Every good which he loves, every truth he accepts, every charity he cherishes, follows the same law; circling in the ascending order, like the vine that twines round and round its trellis, to lift its leaves and fruit into the upper air and light. The law of habit we cannot repeal, but our use of it depends upon ourselves. It is like the tides, which wait not our bidding to rise or fall, but which leave us free to launch wisdom and industry, or folly and rapine, upon their waters. The law says that man must return in his course. He must go home. Let a true life interpret the benignity of this Divine constancy.

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Consider, also, the variety which comes from the action of this law. The interest of existence depends in great measure upon a due proportion of constancy and variety. Were there no uniformity, the world would be chaos, society Babel, and thought madness; there could be no external stability, no intellectual consistency; the senses would recognize no familiar things, and memory could make no reliable record. Such a condition is hardly conceivable; although feuds and wars sometimes so disturb the stability of life as to give some idea of the fatal effect of such disorder. Without variety, moreover, the Divine plan would also be broken, and a dreary monotony would brood over paradise itself. Benign Heaven has blended the two elements in our lot, so that perhaps our highest pleasure consists in the return of familiar blessings with varied circumstances;--not in absolute novelty or absolute permanence, but in scenes, friends, and pursuits ever constant and ever new. Who does not know this kindly mingling of joys? What traveller is there in distant lands--lands which his boyish fancy has so long yearned to see--who does not feel more delight in the return than in the going away? No matter what beauties or sublimities of nature and art may have feasted sense and soul, the fairest sight is his own familiar home and friends,--the sublimest thought is of the God who guarded his childhood, and whose presence he feels more deeply as the guardian of his dwelling, than as the dread Being who piled up the Alps and poured out the oceans. In any aspect of the case, it is recurrence with variety that gives our being much of its finest zest. To talk with cherished friends after absence, to revisit familiar scenes and meditate on times past and present; to perform, under new influences and encouragements, the accustomed round of duty; how much of freshest satisfaction is thus found! It is the best novelty and the truest constancy. Old things are made new by the fresh spirit infused into them, and that which the apostle states as the feeling of a first convert to the Gospel, becomes a permanent aspect of life,--"Old things are passed away, and all things are become new."

Happy the man who understands self-discipline, so as to secure this charm, and mingle constancy and variety in his pursuits. He will divide days and years in such a way that life shall be ever more constant and more fresh. No servile drudge to worldly care, no capricious pleasure-seeker who is always uneasy, because always sated, he will be a faithful worker and a cheerful friend, stronger for work by recreation, the wiser for enjoyment by his work,--filling his time with such varied uses, that recurrent duties shall be welcome to him each in its time, and every day's life illustrate in some way the varied uniformity of God's plan for nature and humanity. Great obstacles, we know, lie in the way of such order; for care is often too imperious and protracted, and pleasure too engrossing, to make true method easy; but the obstacles yield before a just purpose, and, in the end, every man is the artificer of his habits. He can make his life constant to its appointed round, and varied in its constancy.

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So God teaches us the moral significance of the law of return, by showing its bearing on the stability and freshness that give charm to our days. Yet more, he teaches us to find in it the true law of progress. He bids us return, but not the same, nor to the same,--he bids us return better or worse, and to a state of things better or worse. This is a necessity, and we are called to make it a happy necessity. Not in a circle of absolute uniformity, but in a rounding path, in a spiral course, we wind our way upward or downward,--our way turning indeed ever upon itself, yet at a higher or lower mark. The very structure of language indicates that true progress is the returning of the mind towards its previous experience. What is the accumulation of knowledge but remembering the facts of previous observation? What is wisdom but the fruit of reflection, or turning thought backward upon its course? What is repentance but conscience revising past errors? What is reformation but the whole man returning to himself and to God? It is progress that gives its most cheering aspect to the recurrent order of life.

Return then to thine own home as each day, or week, or season repeats the decree. Return to do better than you have ever done,--to see more clearly than before the demands of your position, the errors of your way of living, your indifference, perhaps unkindness, towards those who daily look to you for a nurture, better than that of perishing bread. Return to thine own house, and consider whether among the guests there welcomed, the only abiding Comforter is entertained, and the good angels that go with him are not shut out. Return with thought more free to see things as they are from your temporary absence from the trammels of routine, with affections fresh from nearer companionship with nature, with powers renewed for the sober work of life. Let fortune smile or frown more than of old, make sure of your own soul, and do better than you have done.

Constant and varied in many respects our life must be. God bids us add progress to the constancy and variety that he has decreed. True to him, our days in their returning order, their various events, their steady progress, shall go forward, like the march of the faithful host to the promised land, their step responsive, their way opening new attractions, their course ever onward, and above them, swelling sweet and clear, that glorious psalm of jubilee, which in its rhythmic verse and progressive flow ever returns upon the same rapturous burden, and repeats the hallowed anthem, "His mercy endureth for ever."

Let this be our spirit, and we shall know how wonderfully God reconciles two things apparently contradictory; we shall know, that the greater our progress, the surer our return,--that more and more the blessed scenes and friends of early days shall come back to us. Memory shall mate with hope to cheer us, and the evening of life shall add to its own tranquil beauty the fairest charms from the morning of our days. The aged man turns ever fondly to his childhood, and may enter the kingdom of heaven like a little child, even before death unlocks its gates of eternity.

What a thought here opens--opens to us as we return to our homes, and think of some who return no more! Beyond these homes, the orbit of our being reaches, and one, nay, many call to us, "Come." Over the grave the decree is still more solemnly heard. The words, "Thou sayest, return, ye children of men," mean more, far, than "dust to dust." "Return, ye children of men." "Dust to the dust whence it was,--the spirit to God who gave it."

Christ repeats the call in more than the Hebrew's faith, in more, far more than the philosopher's hope. Futurity as revealed by him is the way homeward to Him from whom our being came,--to all the faithful and lovely, who have blessed man and glorified God. We will not scorn the philosopher's hope of earthly cycles recurring in progressive order, until our globe bears the perfected harvest of a truer civilization, and all nature comes to herself. This hope is well, but does not go far enough. As we and those dear to us leave the earth, we crave word of a return more blessed than any dream of earthly kingdoms and ages. We crave what God has given us. The soul about to go into a region by itself unexplored, yearns to know that the path is not to night and nothingness, but is a return and more than a return to God, the Eternal Father, and to the mansions that gather from all earthly homes their purest treasures, and transfigure them in the light of heaven.

_September._

The Church in the House.

THE CHURCH IN THE HOUSE.

In his letter to Philemon St. Paul salutes "the church in thy house," and thus brings home to us a fact which is too often put a great way off. He brings the church into the house, and thus makes an every-day reality of an institution, which is thought to belong to the disputed territory where controversialists quarrel, or the close walls where priestcraft rules. The church, what is it? many are virtually ready to ask. Is it a certain style of edifice, or platform of opinion, or set of ceremonies or band of officials? In the apostle's mind, surely it was a very tangible fact, and he closes his letter so full of friendly remembrance and delicate courtesy with an affectionate message to the church in his correspondent's house. He meant, of course, by the church the Christian people under Philemon's roof, whether those who lived there constantly or those who came to worship occasionally. The same greeting is several times repeated in Paul's letters, and fitly guides us in some thoughts on practising Christianity at home, or the Church in the House. We would show that.--

There should be a church in every house,
What makes it a true church in itself,
And how it may be true to the church universal.

There should be a church in every house. Nay, we might indeed say, that there must be one there, unless the people are heathen or infidels. A church is a society of Christians for Christian purposes, and it is not easy to see how any worthy family can fail to answer to this large definition, if they will only think of it. Is not the compact which united the heads of the family to each other, and pledged them to their children, a Christian compact, expressly sanctioned by religion, as well as by civil law? Can the compact be kept in any tolerable sense without Christian influences, and is it not expected as a matter of course, that every house shall possess those standards of faith and practice, those Scriptures, which set forth Christ as Saviour and mark his people as his own? Is not all that is done in piety and charity within the household, as far as it goes, a ministration of Christianity? We certainly might justly take offence, if it were said of us, that the apostle's salutation could have no sort of application to our home, on the ground, that there is nothing distinctively Christian there. In all proper humility, consider how we have been educated, what books, what teachers we have enjoyed, what influences we have won from the great thoughts and great institutions of Christendom, what convictions we have tried to cherish amidst all our cares and changes;--consider these things, and would it be right to say that there is nothing Christian at home, nothing of the church there? Some families may indeed seem to be very worldly, almost godless; yet even they are likely to have among them, however unworthily; some traces of Christian institutions, and within their desecrated roof the Bible with its glad tidings, and memory with its treasured wisdom, and conscience with undying witness, still speak of God and Christ, and so far the place is holy ground.

If thus in some sense there must be something of the church in every household not utterly depraved, is it not well to give importance to the fact, that what must be in _some_ way should be in the right way? Many men have been Christians without knowing it, and many families have been churches without thinking of it. All simple, unconscious goodness is to be honored; but it is not so frequent as to make conscious effort dangerous, nor will the most beautiful and spontaneous piety lose any of its grace by opening its eyes fully to what is to be done. Let the spheres of our life be distinctly seen, and the affections will be all the freer and fresher for the clear vision. Let it be distinctly seen, that they who live in one household, by that fact stand in close relations to each other, and have a faith to cherish and a work to do. Let it be seen, that the family was the oldest church holding its worship before temples were built or priesthoods formed, and that the true temple and the true priesthood, instead of repealing, do but consecrate anew the patriarchal church, and Moses and Jesus both give new power and beauty to the covenant with Abraham and the individual family.

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Let there be a church then in every house. We now add, let it be a true one. What makes it such, do any ask? The apostle's benediction is a sufficient reply. To the church in thy house, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace and peace: these are the true consecration of the household. Grace, bringing into all souls the riches of God's favor, and winning them to him through a heavenly faith,--peace, drawing all hearts into unity, and harmonizing all labors by one ruling love. Grace--this comprises all that Jesus came to give to men, all the divine life that he would impart. Its source is God's own Spirit, his wisdom, his power, his mercy--and there is no way of defining it so good as the simple gospel way. Consider what was in Jesus, and what he gave to those that trusted in him, such a sense of God's being and goodness, such life of the soul, such assurance of a divine kingdom both present and future, such consecration of all faculties by one comprehensive faith,--consider this, and we best discern what grace is, and how it gives vigor and beauty to the household as to the individual. Its source is in God, but it is to be received by the soul's own will, and to open the soul to its influence has been the great effort of all worthy theologies, creeds, worship, ministers. We would not disparage any of them, while we do plead earnestly for the importance of the church in the house, with its own peculiar means of grace, its affections so demanding to be confirmed by a love that is divine, its pleasures so readily opening the soul to gratitude, its sacrifices so full of blessing when devoutly rendered, its labors so rich in the fruits of the Spirit when springing from a root of faith, its vicissitudes so eloquent in providential lessons, its memories so full of caution, its hopes so thirsting for immortality. God surely has opened in our homes precious means of grace, and blessed are they who by prayer uttered or unuttered--by devout trust spoken or unspoken, use these means sacredly as in the church of Christ! A transforming spirit will be at work there, and will transfigure all its experience by a divine light, and consecrate all its various gifts and faculties by a divine power.

And in its train peace will come--not merely the quiet that checks harsh words, and regulates tumultuous cares; but the interior peace that tranquillizes each mind without breaking down its force, and harmonizes all diversities of talent and temperament without mutilating any nature. Peace, as the corresponding Greek word teaches, is that which binds together, and who needs this more than those whom God would bind together? It is a great thing to have it, and it was a great triumph of Christianity to give it. In some respects it was a greater triumph to win to living unity the various tempers of the primitive Christian families, than it was to subdue the empire of the Caesars into one confession of faith,--greater certainly, inasmuch for various tempers to agree in all the numberless points of daily contact is more than to agree in the one point of a nominal belief. Paul, in defining the economy of the true church, began by declaring, that there are diversities of gifts but the same spirit. Blessed in many respects has been the comment of history upon that word of inspiration! Who that has any sense of God's use of providential men, does not adore the wisdom that has employed such various minds for the same great purposes, and made history such a book of Providence, telling us of the wise and good and mighty characters of insight or argument, learning or eloquence, sensibility or daring, who have done their part to build up the kingdom of God? The church is truer as this is better done, and all differences of power combine in one work. Carry out this idea at home, and what a sphere for that peace of God which would harmonize all diversities by one good spirit!

In a worldly point of view shrewd men study the characters of their families with something of this aim, and desire to see what their children are best fitted to do, that they may choose such callings as shall bring out their powers best for the wealth or dignity of the household. This desire we are not quarrelling with, but enforcing a higher study of character that seeks to look more deeply into the mind, and provide far more thoroughly for the great work of life. Do not by any means fail to discern the mathematician, the orator, the mechanic, the artist, the farmer, or whatever else may be the varieties of talent in your family. But discern also the various faculties and dispositions in a religious point of view, that each may be duly guided, and all led to use their various gifts in the true heart. See the tendencies that need to be checked, and above all, those that need to be encouraged; and home education will be a Christian nurture in the peace that passeth understanding. Far more bountifully than many a kind-hearted but too worldly parent thinks, has Providence enriched the house with gifts that may be ministries. That boy whose restless impulse seems sometimes wilfulness, needs your discriminate care to win his impulse to a noble enthusiasm, and may be a reprobate if your neglect leaves him to his passions or your violence stings him to retaliation. That girl so keenly alive to what is pleasant to the eye and ear, may make of her native taste a motive to every vanity, unless you train the sense of beauty into reverence for the true loveliness and for the art that copies the handiwork of God and makes life beautiful in making it holy. That keen little reasoner who vexes you with so many strange questions, the doubting Thomas of your fold, may be the chilling sceptic, unless he is encouraged to be the thoughtful sage who can answer as well as ask. That sensitive child who is so awake to religious impressions, whose choice reading is hymns and Bible stories, and whose dreams upon the pillow seem often to be in the sweet land of Beulah which so cheered Bunyan's Pilgrim, may by your neglect become a morbid bigot, unless by your judicious sympathy she is encouraged to become a healthful devotee, cheering and exalting the home by that interior life that made Mary of Bethany love to sit at the feet of Jesus, which filled with such holy quietude the heart of Jane Guyon, and moved with such persuasive mercy the lips of Elizabeth Gurney and Mary Ware.

We need not specify the varieties of character that require to be subdued or encouraged to the same spirit. Blessed is the home where such peace is found; and all are bound together in its unity! No cunning arts of mental training, no formal systems new or old, no technical dogmas, no mechanical ceremonials, much less can any cold worldly policy do this work. Grace and peace must be sought from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, and our thoughts, and studies, and labors quite as much as our prayers, must rest upon the rock of faith, and look to the blessing from above. Such grace and peace at once give strength to the utilities and beauty to the courtesies of the house, ruling its economy in a divine order, and refining its manners by a tender humanity. There may be various creeds and forms in the habits of the various members, yet all are harmonized by one faith and charity.

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Such in brief is the true church in the house, and being such, instead of petting any narrow familism it will best favor the church universal by appreciating its office and helping its work.

It will appreciate its office, for what can better interpret the meaning of Christian institutions than a faithful use of the social sphere, first of all in time and importance? As we try to be wise and faithful in matters nearest to us, how can we but cherish the wisdom kept by the church for ages, and the sacred usages which appeal so tenderly to our home feelings? How can we fail to honor the exposition of the Divine Word, the lessons of public worship, and those various ministrations that take such hold upon life as it is, whether to consecrate childhood into the privileges of the Divine kingdom, to implore upon human love the Divine blessing, to comfort the mourning, to rejoice with the happy, to strengthen the dying with an immortal hope, or set forth the Resurrection and the Life above the dust of the grave? For the sinful and the lonely, indeed, the church universal has a tender and solemn voice, but it is not for them alone. The city of God on earth which Jesus founded, has its best offices for those who live together in the unity of the Spirit, and the church in the house is a better interpreter of its riches of wisdom and joy than any conclave of ghostly monks or assembly of keen scholastics.