Part 44
work the Church ought to send forth her picked men. If any of you have ability for the teaching of youth and are not using the talent, you are sinning against the child quite as much as if you undertook the work and did not perform it thoroughly. There are schools in this neighborhood languishing for lack of teachers. We have letters constantly sent to us, "Can you send us help?" and it is a crying shame that in a neighborhood so blessed with the Gospel there should be any Sunday school pining for lack of teachers to instruct the children.
I am told that in some schools near this Tabernacle, there are sometimes 50 or 100 children without teachers! I charge you, men and women who know Christ, while such spheres are before you, do not stand back from them lest it be charged upon you in the Day of Judgment, concerning these little ones, that you withheld from them the Bread of Life and left them to die in the dark!
The text further bears with equal severity upon the preacher. I feel it chides and chastens me. Preaching is full often too obscure for children. The words are too long, the sentences too involved, the matter too mysterious. Well might the sermon be styled like matrimony in the Prayer-Book, "an excellent mystery." I believe I have, as much as most of my Brothers, sought out simple words and many dear children have heard the Word from me and have been profited, while many others of them delight to come to the Tabernacle to listen to the minister. Still, we who occupy the pulpit do not feed the lambs as we should. We should give them not merely a Word now and then, but if possible the whole discourse should be such as they can understand.
Sacred simplicity should be so cultivated by the ambassador of Christ, that lads and lasses should hear intelligently under a good shepherd, and the least lamb should be able to find food. Is it always so with ministers? I have my confessions to make, and some of my Brothers, if they are ever awakened to a sense of sin about the matter, will have even longer confessions to offer, since in our pulpits we do, too often, sin against the child.
But we must push on. I want the Church of God, and especially this Church, to attend carefully to the next few remarks. When teachers and others are earnest about the conversion of children, and some of them are converted, they then come into relationship with the Church, and too often the Lord's people need the advice, "Do not sin against the child." How can a Church so offend? It can do so by not believing in the conversion of children at all! I am persuaded there are hundreds of Christians who, in their hearts, altogether mistrust the worth of regeneration unless the party bornagain is over 16 or 18 years of age! If the inmost thoughts of many professors could be spoken, it would be seen that they are at once suspicious of a conversion if the convert is only 13 years of age, and yet would cheerfully endorse the same conversion if the person were 30 or seventy!
There is a sad respect of persons among us still–a lingering belief that a certain period of years spent in sin must have elapsed before a work can be commenced! And yet, if you were to think, the conversion of a child is, in itself, no more difficult than the conversion of a full-grown man! With God all things are possible!
If it were right to compare two equally Divine works, it should seem to be an easier thing to renew the child than the man! There is less of the dire force of habit to overcome! There is less to forget, less to repent of! Though there is nothing spiritually good in us by nature, yet there is a certain simplicity about the child–a readiness of belief, an absence of cautiousness and questioning–which is exceedingly helpful in receiving the Truth of God.
Where two things are both impossible, except with God, we may draw comparisons. I should really say that the conversion of the child appears to be the simpler work of the two–and how, then, have we come to imagine it not to be so, I can scarcely tell! Surely that same Holy Spirit who can enter into the man of 70, and overcome his sins and make him to become like a little child, can enter, also, into the child and overcome his natural depravity and make him willing, in the day of God's power, and lead him to faith in Jesus!
If salvation had to do with mysterious doctrines hard to be understood. If to be a Christian one needed to comprehend the Hebrew and the Greek languages, we might admit the difficulty of the conversion of little children. But if it is all so simple that he that runs may read, and he that reads may still continue to run–if it is all so plain as to be nothing more than this, "He that believes in the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved"–why not a child as capable of faith as a man? And why may it not be as probable that we may see numbers of children converted to God as that numbers of adults may give their allegiance to the faith?
Get rid of this base idea, then, lest you be found sinning against the child! God can save children! He has saved many! He has proved to His unbelieving Church the greatness of His power towards the little ones. Thrust out the thought, then, and expect, from this day forward, that God will save the children as well as others. Having believed that their conversion is possible, when you hear of it, be willing to believe it is so. I do not ask of children that they should be received into the Church without examination. I do not claim for a youngster who declares that he is a Believer in Christ, that he should be received into the Church with any less rigorous examination than any adult. All I ask is that he should not be tormented with needless suspicions and looked upon as an impostor!
Brothers and Sisters, it would be very greatly sinning against children if the moment their little susceptible minds were made to feel terror on account of sin, we should put that down as repentance. Or the moment they felt some joy at the thought of the love of Christ we should assure them that they possessed faith. This would be to educate them in selfdeception. We should not look to find in the young more than in the old. But so far as faith and repentance are concerned, we must require quite as much. I mean that the same repentance which is necessary in an adult in order to salvation is indispensable in a child.
The faith of God's elect is the same faith in the youth as in the gray-headed man. Nothing short of real repentance and true faith in Christ can save anybody–and there is no difference in age at all in that respect. We ought, therefore, to expect in a child a sincere hatred of sin, a true sense of its evil, a conviction that he cannot save himself and a simple reliance upon the work of Jesus which we expect in any other convert. Less than this will leave young or old short of eternal life. Many say, "We must hope for the best, and we must not expect too much of a child." But I reply we would do that child most serious injury if we taught him to be satisfied with that which is unsatisfactory and to rest anywhere but in the Lord
Jesus! We must expect as much, but what I plead for is we must not expect more!
I am sure that there are some ministers and Church members who discourage, at once, any profession of faith from boys and girls.
"Oh yes," they say, "it is the morning cloud and the early dew. It will soon pass away." They utter sharp and hard things, which, if Satan needed instruments, would be the very ones to grieve tender hearts! They put on such frowns, and give themselves such lofty airs that humble, timid children shrink back and are to the Church, for many a day, perhaps, kept outside her pale. Let us judge them righteously, but let us not judge them censoriously. Let us be willing to receive them to Baptism and to the Lord's Table, and when they are received, instead of thinking of them as though they were less valuable than other members, let us count them to be the very pride of the flock!
I hate to hear people say, "They have received a pack of children into the Church." "A pack of children," yes, and if Jesus carries them in His bosom, surely you are not imitating Christ, nor exhibiting much of His spirit when you look down upon them and despise them! To me, one soul is as good as another. I rejoice as much in the addition of the poorest mechanic to this Church as if he were a peer of the realm! I am as grateful to God when I hear of repentance in the young as in the aged, for souls, after all, are not affected in value by rank or age!
Immortal spirits are all priceless, and not to be weighed in the scale with worlds. I pray you, therefore, rejoice if the Spirit of God dwells in the lowly or in the great–in the young or in the old! He is the same Spirit! He makes each renewed person equally His temple–and each saved one is equally a jewel of Christ–dear to the heart of the Eternal Father, beloved by Him who redeemed all His people alike with His most precious blood! Let us not, therefore, as a Church, sin against the child.
II. WHO SAYS THIS TO US? Nature says it first. The instincts of humanity cry, "Do not sin against the child. It is but a child. It is little–sin not against it." In the sacking of a town, in one of the old bloodthirsty wars, a soldier seized a little child and was about to kill him in very wickedness when the little one cried oat, "O Sir, don't kill me, Sir, I am so little." The appeal saved his life. For the same reason, hurt not your child or teach it evil. It is so little and it is so trustful, that it is treason to lead it astray. Be careful how you behave towards a soul which reposes in you so implicitly. Do not sin against the child. It is your own. You gave it birth. You see your own features in its smiling face. Will you lead your own child to Hell? Will you be the destroyer of your own offspring? You love it.
Your heart overflows with affection for your child. Let Divine
Grace turn the streams of affection in the channel of wisdom that the immortal nature of your child may receive the benefit.
Experience adds its voice to Nature, "Do not sin against the child." Hundreds of parents have been brought with sorrow to the grave through the natural result of their own failures and trespasses in reference to their children. They taught the lesson of sin and the children, having learned it, practiced it upon their parents. If you would not stuff your pillow with thorns, do not sin against the child. Experience teaches us, too, from its brighter side, the excellence of holy behavior in the household. How often parents have had the reward of well educating their children–how the father has leaned, when he has grown weak upon the son's strong shoulder–and the mother has found her dearest comfort upon earth in the daughter whom she had trained for Christ!
Experience says, for your own sakes, lest you nurse an adder into your bosom, sin not against the child. And for your own sake, that, as arrows are in the hands of a mighty man, so may your sons and daughters be in later life, sin not against the child. Conscience repeats the same advice. That inward monitor ceases not to remind us of what is due to God and to His peculiar charge, the weak and feeble. Conscience tells us, plainly, that we must not sport with responsibilities so vast. "Take this child and nurse it for me," said the daughter of Pharaoh to Moses' mother, "and I will give you your wages." And even so every babe that is cast into our lap by Providence is put there for the same reason–that we may train it for God and obtain a reward of Divine Grace at the last.
The Church adds her voice to that of Conscience. "Do not sin against the child," for the children are the Church's hope. Bring them to Christ that He may put His hands upon them and bless them. That they may become the future teachers and preachers, the pillars and defense of Christ's Church below. Though some of us have lived but a few years in this world, we have lived long enough to see some of our most esteemed non-conforming families seduced by various motives into communion with the world's religion and the world's church. The mystery is not at all difficult to solve. The parents grew rich, and though they were still among us, they were not of us. Pride separated them in spirit, and their sons and daughters were introduced into other society than could be found among the humbler followers of Jesus–to such fashionable company they became united–and now the descendants of Dissenters are among the fiercest revilers of our holy faith!
Better far were it for us to see our children carried to their graves as infants–to be mourned over with the resignation which a sure hope begets–than they should live to forsake the Lord God of their fathers and to pull down what their fathers built up! That the sons of the Puritans should degenerate into Cavaliers! That the sturdy
Protestant family should be led away with Puseyism! That the godly sire should be followed by a reckless son is most deplorable– but so it has been in all generations–and so it will be, still, while parents sin against the child.
God himself, speaking from the excellent Glory, this morning, says to each one of His servants here, "Do not sin against the child," and I ask that if no other voice is heard, we may all bow before His Glorious Majesty and ask for Divine Grace to be willing and obedient.
III. Thirdly, having heard the message, WHAT THEN? Only two things. Does not that exhortation startle some of the unconverted and unawakened here? I think if I were as you are, Sir, if I had lived to be 60 years of age and my son had died through drunkenness, or my daughter were at this time living a godless life and I were unconverted, it would shoot a pang through my heart to think that I should have brought such misery upon them through my neglect of Divine things. A man often hesitates before he will plunge his family into the speculation which he would not shudder at himself. To be damned, yourself, is something terrible– condemned of God, withered and blasted forever with His anger– cast away where hope can never come!
Well, you may gird up your loins and make your brow as brass, and say, "I will even run the risk of that, and beard the Eternal, and defy the fierceness of His wrath," but can you bear to think that your seed will probably fall into the same condemnation? Eyes will peer at you through the smoke of Tophet and shall recognize you– then some such words as these shall be hissed into your ears–"A curse on you, O Man, the author of my miserable being, and the cause of my endless ruin. A curse be on you, and a sevenfold Hell on you, my Sire, and on you, Woman, that gave me birth, for you trained me in the service of Satan and everlasting destruction fell on me through you! O inhuman wretches, to consign your own children to the flames! Fiends that you were, to teach me the ways of vanity and irreligious, both by your example and your precepts."
Ah! Sinner, this will multiply your torments! You shall be dragged down by your own children's hands to lower depths of misery! I pray you stop and think, and if you cannot redeem the mischief which you have already done, yet repent of it! Fly to the Cross! Be saved yourself, and maybe those of your house who still are spared, may, with yourself, be saved. O that Divine Grace might lead you, like the Philippian jailor, to cry out, "What must I do to be saved?" and then to hear the voice of promise, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved, and your house." Oh, if my words could be as flashes of lightning! If every syllable I drop was a flame of fire, I should rejoice, if thoughtless ungodly ones would but turn to God and live!
Does not this command of this morning press upon every
Christian here, not alone upbraiding us, but as arousing our laggard energies, exciting us to something more of diligence and effort?
Will you not, dear Friends, this afternoon, pray that Mr.
Hammond's words may be powerful among the throng of boys and girls? Will it not be a matter of conscience with everyone here that at home you will plead with God for a blessing? And during this week will you not maintain a gracious concert of earnest prayer that the benediction may descend like showers of gracious rain upon these young plants?
Will you not give us your best help if you see any movements of God's Spirit? Will you not join to cheer and to instruct the newborn converts? Will you not consider whether you could not take a class in one of the surrounding Sunday schools? Will you not roll away that reproach which I mentioned just now, which rests upon some of you because there are schools without teachers? Parents, will you not pray for your children, and even today seek to hold up
Jesus before them? Will we not all, God helping us, say within ourselves that we will no longer sin against the child, but in Jesus' name seek to gather His lambs and feed them for Him? Amen.
Ge 42:22 • Do Not Sin Against the Child
ERMON 3237
Do Not Sin Against The Child
"And Reuben answered them, saying, Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against the child; and ye would not hear? therefore, behold, also his blood is required."
Genesis 42:22
[A Sermon by C. H. Spurgeon upon the same text is #840, also entitled Do Not Sin Against the Child. It was delivered as a preface to a series of services for children conducted in the Tabernacle in the year 1868, by the late Mr. E. Payson Hammond.]
You know how Joseph's brethren, through envy, sold him into Egypt and how ultimately they were themselves compelled to go down into Egypt to buy com. When they were treated roughly by the governor of that country, whom they did not know to be their brother, their consciences smote them and they said one, to another, "We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul when he besought us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us."
While their consciences were thus accusing them, the voice of their elder brother chimed in, saying, "Said I not unto you, Do not sin against the child?" From which I gather that if we commit sin after being warned, the voice of conscience will be all the more condemning, for it will be supported by the memory of disregarded admonitions, which will revive again, and with solemn voices say to us, "Said we not unto you, Do not sin against the child?"
We who know what is due to children will be far more guilty than others if we sin against their souls. Wiser views as to the needs and hopes of the little ones are now abroad in this world than those which ruled the public mind fifty years ago—and we shall be doubly criminal if now we bring evil upon the little ones.
The advice of Reuben may well be given to all grown-up persons, "Do not sin against the child." Thus would I speak to every parent, to every elder brother or sister, to every schoolmaster, to every employer, to every man and woman, whether they have families or not, "Do not sin against the child." Neither against your own child, nor against anybody's child, nor against the poor waif of the street whom they call, "nobody's child."
If you sin against adults, "do not sin against the child." If a man must be profane, let him have too much reverence for a child to pollute its little ears with blasphemy. If a man must drink, let him have too much respect for childhood to entice his boy to sip at the intoxicating cup. If there is anything of lewdness or coarseness on foot, screen the young child from the sight and hearing of it. O you parents, do not follow trades which will ruin your children, do not select houses where they will be cast into evil society, do not bring depraved persons within your doors to defile them!
For a man to lead others like himself into temptation is bad enough—but to sow the vile seed of vice in hearts that are as yet untainted by any gross, actual sin, is a hideous piece of wickedness.
Do not commit spiritual infanticide. For God's sake, in the name of common humanity, I pray you, if you have any sort of feeling left, do not play the Herod by morally murdering the innocents. I have heard that when, in the cruel sack of a city, a soldier was about to kill a child, his hand was stayed by the little one's crying out, "O sir, please don't kill me. I am so little!" The feebleness and littleness of childhood should appeal to the worst of men and restrain them from sinning against the child.
According to the story of Joseph, there are three ways of sinning against the child. The first was contained in the proposition of the envious brothers, "Let us slay him...and we shall see what will become of his dreams." "Shed no blood," said Reuben, who had reasons of his own for wishing to save Joseph's life. There is such a thing as morally and spiritually slaying boys and girls—and here even the Reubens unite with us—even those who are not so good as they should be will join in the earnest protest, "Do not sin against the child"—do not train him in dishonesty, lying, drunkenness, and vice.
No one among us would wish to do so, but it is continually done by bad example. Many sons are ruined by their fathers. Those who gave them birth give them their death. They brought them into the world of sin and they seem intent to bring them into the world of punishment—and will succeed in the fearful attempt unless the grace of God shall interfere.
Many are doing all they can, by their own conduct at home and abroad, to educate their offspring into pests of society and plagues to their country. When I see the number of juvenile criminals, I cannot help asking, "Who slew all these?" And it is sad to have for an answer, "These are mostly the victims of their parents' sin."
The fiercest beasts of prey will not destroy their own young, but sin makes men unnatural, so that they destroy their offspring's souls without thought. To teach a child a lascivious song is unutterably wicked—to introduce him to the wine cup is evil. To take children to places of amusement where everything is polluting
—where the quick-witted boy soon spies out vice and learns to be precocious in it—where the girl, while sitting to see the play, has kindled within her passions which need no fuel—to do this is to act the tempter's part.
Would you poison young hearts and do them lifelong mischief? I wish that the guardian of public morals would put down all open impurity, but if that cannot be, at least let the young be shielded. He who instructs a youth in the vices of the world is a despicable wretch—a panderer for the devil, for whom contempt is a feeling too lenient. No, even though you are yourself of all men most hardened, there can be no need to worry the lambs and offer the babes before the shrine of Moloch.
The same evil may be committed by indoctrinating children with evil teachings. They learn so soon that it is a sad thing to teach them error. It is a dreadful thing when the infidel father sneers at the cross of Christ in the presence of his boy, when he utters horrible things against our blessed Lord in the hearing of tender youth. It is sad to the last degree that those who have been singing holy hymns in the Sabbath school should go home to hear God blasphemed, and to see holy things spit upon and despised. To the very worst unbelievers we might well say—Do not thus ruin your child's immortal soul. If you are yourself resolved to perish, do not drag your child downward too.
But there is a second way of sinning against the child, of which Reuben's own proposition may serve as an illustration. Though not with a bad motive, Reuben said, "Cast him into this pit that is in the wilderness, and lay no hand upon him."
The idea of many is to leave the child as a child, and then look him up in after days and seek to deliver him from destruction. Do not kill him, but leave him alone till riper years. Do not kill him— that would be wicked murder—but leave him in the wilderness till a more convenient season, when, like Reuben, you hope to come to his rescue. Upon this point I shall touch many more of you than upon the first.
Many professing Christians ignore the multitudes of children around them and act as if there were no such living beings. They may go to Sunday school or not—they do not know and do not care. At any rate, these good people cannot trouble themselves with teaching children. I would earnestly say, "Do not sin against the child by such neglect." "No," says Reuben, "we will look after him when he is a man. He is in the pit now, but we are in hopes of getting him out afterwards."
That is the common notion—that the children are to grow up unconverted—and that they are to be saved in after life. They are to be left in the pit now and to be drawn out by and by. This pernicious notion is sinning against the child. No word of Holy
Scripture gives countenance to such a policy of delay and neglect.
Neither nature nor grace pleads for it.
It was the complaint of Jeremiah, "Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones: the daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness."
Let not such a charge lie against any one of us. Our design and object should be that our children, while they are yet children, should be brought to Christ. And I ask those dear brothers and sisters here present who love the Lord not to doubt about the conversion of their little ones, but to seek it at once with all their hearts. Why should our Josephs remain in the pit of nature's corruption? Let us pray the Lord at once to take them up out of the horrible pit and save them with a great salvation.
There is yet a third way of sinning against the child, which plan was actually tried upon Joseph— they sold him—sold him to the Midianite merchantmen. They offered twenty pieces of silver for him and his brothers readily handed him over for that reward. I am afraid that some are half inclined to do the same now.
It is imagined that now that we have School Boards, we shall not want Sabbath schools so much, but may give over the young to the Secularists. Because the children are to be taught the multiplication table, they will not need to be taught the fear of the Lord! Strange reasoning this! Can geography teach them the way to heaven or arithmetic remove their countless sins? The more of secular knowledge our juveniles acquire, the more will they need to be taught in the fear of the Lord.
To leave our youthful population in the hands of secular teachers will be to sell them to the Ishmaelites. Nor is it less perilous to leave them to the seductive arts of Ritualists and Papists. We who love the Gospel must not let the children slip through our hands into the power of those who would enslave their minds by superstitious dogmas. We sin against the child if we hand it over to teachers of error.
The same selling of the young Josephs can be effected by looking only to their worldly interests and forgetting their souls. A great many parents sell their children by putting them out as apprentices to men of no character, or by placing them in situations where ungodliness is the paramount influence. Frequently the father does not ask where the boy can go on the Sabbath day, and the mother does not inquire whether her girl can hear the Gospel when she gets out—but good wages are looked after and not much else.
They count themselves very staunch if they draw a line at Roman
Catholics, but worldliness and even profligacy are not reckoned as barriers in many cases. How many there are of those who call themselves Christians who sell their daughters in marriage to rich men! The men have no religion whatever, but "it is a splendid match," because they move in high society. Young men and women are put into the matrimonial market and disposed of to the highest bidder—God is not thought of in the matter.
Thus the rich depart from the Lord and curse their children quite as much as the poor. I am sure ye would not literally sell your offspring for slaves, and yet to sell their souls is by no means less abominable. "Do not sin against the child." Do not sell him to the Ishmaelites. "Ah!" you say, "the money is always handy." Will you take the price of blood? Shall the blood of your children's souls be on your skirts? I pray you, pause awhile ere you do this.
Sometimes, a child may be sinned against because he is disliked.
The excuse for undue harshness and severity is, "He is such a strange child!" You have heard of the cygnet that was hatched in a duck's nest. Neither duck, nor drake, nor ducklings could make anything out of the ugly bird, and yet, in truth, it was superior to all the rest.
Joseph was the swan in Jacob's nest, and his brothers and even his father did not understand him. His father rebuked him and said, "Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth?" He was not understood by his own kin. I should fancy that he was a most uncomfortable boy to live with, for when his elder brothers transgressed, he felt bound to bring unto his father "their evil report."
I doubt not that they called him, "a little sneak," though, indeed, he was a gracious child. His dreams also were very odd and considerably provoking, for he was always the hero of them. His brothers called him "this dreamer," and evidently thought him to be a mere fool. He was his father's pet boy and this made him even more obnoxious to the other sons.
Yet that very child, who was so despised by his brothers, was the Joseph among them. History replicates itself, and the difference in your child, which now causes him to be pecked at, may perhaps arise from a superiority which as yet hasn't found its sphere. At any rate, "do not sin against the child," because he is singular, for he may rise to special distinction.
Do not, of course, show him partiality and make him a coat of many colors—because if you do, his brothers will have some excuse for their envy. But on the other hand, do not suffer him to be snubbed and do not allow his spirit to be crushed.
I have known some who, when they have met with a little Joseph, have sinned against him by foolish flattery. The boy has said something rather good, and then they have set him upon the table so that everybody might see him and admire what he had to say, while he was coaxed into repeating his sage observations. Thus the child was made self-conceited, forward, and pert.
Children who are much exhibited are usually spoiled in the operation. I think I hear the proud parents say, "Now do see—do see what a wonderful boy my Harry is!" Yes, I do see. I do see what a wonderful stupid his mother is. I do see how unwise his father is to expose his boy to such peril. Do not sin against the child by fostering his pride, which, as it is an ill weed, will grow apace of itself.
In many cases, the sin is of quite the opposite character.
Contemptuous sneers have chilled many a good desire and ridicule has nipped in the bud many a sincere purpose. Beware of checking youthful enthusiasm for good things. God forbid that you or I should quench one tiny spark of grace in a lad's heart, or destroy a single bud of promise! We believe in the piety of children—let us never speak, or act, or look as if we despised it.
"Do not sin against the child," whoever you may be. Whether you are teacher or parent, take care that, if there is any trace of the little
Joseph in your child, even though it be but in his dreams, you do not sin against him by attempting to repress the noble flame which God may be kindling in his soul.
I cannot just now mention the many, many ways in which we may be offending against one of the Lord's little ones, but I would have you recollect that, if the Lord's love should light upon your boy, and he should grow up to be a distinguished servant of the Lord, your conscience will prick you and a voice will say in your soul, "Said I not unto you, Do not sin against the child?"
And if, on the other hand, your child should not become a Joseph, but an Absalom, it will be a horrible thing to be compelled to mingle with your lamentations the overwhelming consciousness that you led your child into the sin by which he became the dishonor of your family. If I see my child perish and know that he became a reprobate through my ill teaching and example, I shall have to wring my hands with dread remorse and cry, "I slew my child! I slew my child! and when I did it, I knew better, but I disregarded the voice which said to me, 'Do not sin against the child.'"
Now, dear Sunday school teachers, I will mention one or two matters which concern you. "Do not sin against the child" by coming to your class with a chilly heart. Why should you make your children cold towards divine things? Do not sin against them by coming too late, for that will make them think that punctuality is not a virtue and that the Sunday school is of no very great importance.
"Do not sin against the child" by coming irregularly and absenting yourself at the smallest pretense, for that is distinctly saying to the child, "You can neglect to serve God when you please, for you see that this is what I do." "Do not sin against the child" by merely going through class routine, without really teaching and instructing. That is the shadow of Sunday school teaching and not the substance—and it is in some respects worse than nothing.
"Do not sin against the child" by merely telling him a number of stories without setting forth the Savior, for that will be giving him a stone instead of bread. "Do not sin against the child" by aiming at anything short of his conversion to God through Jesus Christ the Savior.
And then, you parents, "do not sin against the child" by being so very soon angry. I have frequently heard grown-up people repeat that verse, "Children, obey your parents in all things." It is a very proper text—a very proper text—and boys and girls should carefully attend to it. I like to hear fathers and mothers preach from it, but there is that other one, you know. There is that other and —"Likewise, ye fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged!"
Do not pick up every little thing against a good child and throw it in his or her teeth, and say, "Ah, if you were a Christian child, you would not do this and you would not do that!" I am not so sure about that—you who are heads of families do a great many wrong things yourselves—and yet I hope you are Christians. And if your Father in heaven were sometimes to be as severe with you as you are with the sincere little ones when you are out of temper, I am afraid it would go very hard with you. Be gentle, and kind, and tender, and loving.
At the same time, do not sin against any child by over-indulgence.
Spoiled children are like spoiled fruit—the less we see of them the better. In some families, the master of the house is the youngest boy, though he is not yet big enough to wear knickerbockers. He manages his mother, and his mother, of course, manages his father, and so, in that way, he rules the whole house.
This is unwise, unnatural, and highly perilous to the pampered child. Keep boys and girls in proper subjection, for they cannot be happy themselves, nor can you be so, unless they are in their places. Do not water your young plants either with vinegar or with syrup. Neither use too much nor too little of rebuke. Seek wisdom of the Lord, and keep the middle of the way.
In a word, "do not sin against the child," but train it in the way it should go, and bring it to Jesus that He may bless it. Cease not to pray for the child till his young heart is given to the Lord. May the Holy Spirit make you wise to deal with these young immortals!
Like plastic clay, they are on the wheel. Oh, that He would teach us how to mold and fashion their characters! Above all, may He put
His own hand to the work—and then it will be done indeed!
Ge 42:36 • All These Things: A Sermon with Three Texts
ERMON 0837 "All These Things"—A Sermon With Three Texts "And Jacob their father said unto them, You have bereaved me of my children: Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and you will take
Benjamin away: all these things are against me."
Genesis 42:36
THE Patriarch must use the expression, "ALL THESE THINGS."
He had gone through the catalog–there were but three items at the most, and yet nothing narrower than, "All these things are against me" will suit him. Our notation of our trials is very apt to present them in exaggerated number, but when we come to count our mercies, as a usual rule our tendency is to diminish them. We magnify the hosts of our troubles and underestimate the armies of our benefits. It were well if it were not so, for the habit is most painful to ourselves and dishonorable to God. "All these things," indeed! And what a little "all" compared with the benefits of God!
What an insignificant "all" compared with the sufferings of our Covenant Head! What a trifling "all" compared with the amazing weight of Glory which shall soon be revealed in us!
However, allowing the timorous expression to stand, it shall be my business this morning to show that while, according to the verdict of unbelief, "all these things are against us," yet there are other lights in which to look upon the multitude of our griefs–lights which shall enable us to perceive their benefit to us, and even to triumph in them through Him that loved us.
Our first text is THE EXCLAMATION OF UNBELIEF–"All these things are against me." In Jacob's case it was a very plausible verdict. Joseph he had long lost sight of. Simeon did not return from the journey into Egypt. His sons now requested that Benjamin might be entrusted to their thriftless care–and it might well appear to the anxious father as if, one by one, his children were sinking into untimely graves and that God was dealing severely with him.
Even the insinuation by which he ascribed these bereavements to the malice or carelessness of his sons, "You have bereaved me of my children," had an air of great likelihood thrown around it.
Yet plausible as was the old man's mournful conclusion, it was not correct, and therefore let us learn to forbear rash judgment and never, in any case, conclude against the faithfulness of the Lord.
There may be peculiarities in our case which look as if the Master had treated us with cruel harshness. There may be thorns of unusual sharpness in our pillow but we must not dream that anger placed them there. We may be pining under a grief which we could not tell into another's ear. It may seem that our lot is singled out and separated for peculiar misery–and therefore it may seem just to conclude, "God has forsaken me. He has turned upon me in His fierce anger, and His loving kindnesses have failed forevermore."
But rest assured, my Brothers and Sisters, that the most plausible is not always the most true, and the most natural is not the most sure. God is and ever must be love to His people. Let nothing disturb you in this belief. Believe not the clearest inferences from His Providence–believe HIM! Let outward circumstances say what they may. Even if your understanding should lead you to doubt the Lord, remember that God is greater than your understanding, that His ways are past finding out, and in the end His dispensations must prove to be wise, loving, and gracious. Yet I can well imagine that souls in distress feel it almost ungenerous to dispute the verdict at which they have arrived–for the evidence appears to be so multiplied and clear.
Sitting alone, silent in your sorrow, crushed out of all hope, you claim the unhappy right to declare, "All these things are against me." And yet, Beloved, it is not so. Jacob's exclamation was most evidently exaggerated–exaggerated in the term he used, "All these things," for there were but three evils at the most–exaggerated, too, in most of the bound him before their eyes. But they gave him no reason to believe that Simeon was put to death. The old man jumps to a conclusion for which he has no warrant, and laments because, "Simeon is not."
He added, "You would take Benjamin away." Yes, but only to go into Egypt to buy corn–a short and needed journey from which he would soon return. You would suppose, from the Patriarch's language, that beyond all doubt Simeon had fallen a victim in Egypt, and that Benjamin was demanded with a view to his instant execution! But where was evidence to support this assertion? We frequently talk of our sorrows in language larger than the truth warrants. We write ourselves down as peers in the realms of misery, whereas we do but bear the common burdens of ordinary men. We dream that no others have ever passed along our rugged path, whereas the road is beaten down with the footsteps of the flock.
We imagine that the furnace has been heated seven times hotter for us, whereas, compared with martyrs and the afflicted in all ages, and especially compared with our Master, it is probable that our griefs are of the lighter kind. The exclamation of Jacob was also as absurd as it was exaggerated. It lead him to make a speech which, (however accidentally true), with his information as to his sons was ungenerous, and even worse. He said, "You have bereaved me of my children." Now, if he really believed that Joseph was torn of beasts, as he appears to have believed, he had no right to assail the brothers with a charge of murder, for it was little else.
In the case of Simeon, the brothers were perfectly innocent–they had nothing whatever to do with Simeon's being bound–it was wrong to accuse them so harshly. In the taking away of Benjamin, though there may have been a jealousy against him as before against Joseph, yet most certainly the brothers were not to blame.
They told their father, most correctly, the message which the lord of Egypt had sent to him. It was Joseph who had said, "If you bring not your younger brother with you, by the life of Pharaoh you shall not see my face again." That was no invention of theirs, and it was unjust on the part of the old Patriarch to cast over his sons, who probably loved him very much and were anxious for his welfare, an accusation little short of a charge of triple murder. "You have bereaved me of my children." Oh, cruel words!
Brothers and Sisters, when our griefs are heavy we are apt to accuse our fellows, to be angry with the secondary causes of our suffering and to say things which ought not to be said by the followers of the meek and lowly Jesus! A dog will bite the stick with which you strike him, but if he had sense he would see how little the secondary cause has to do with it. And so we, oftentimes, are provoked against the person through whom we are troubled, whereas, after all, the rod is wielded by the hand of God, and He is the true source of affliction! If you drink of the river of affliction near its outfall, it is brackish and offensive to the taste. But if you will trace it to its Source, where it rises at the foot of the Throne of God, you will find its waters to be sweet and health-giving.
Even the waters of affliction, when they are tasted at the wellhead, are sweet with Divine love. But if you follow them along the miry channels of secondary causes and instrumentalities, you will perceive a bitterness in them creating envy, malice, and all uncharitableness within you. Jacob was, in the expression before us, even bitter towards God! There is not a word like submission in the sentence, nothing of resignation, nothing of confidence. He knew very well that all things came from God, and, in effect he declares that God is, in all these things, fighting against him. God forbid that these tongues, which owe their power to speak to the great God, should ever pervert their powers to slandering Him! And yet if our tongues have not spoken unbelievingly, how often our hearts have done so!
We have said, "Why has God dealt thus with me? Why are His strokes so multiplied? And why are my wounds so blue? Oh, why am I thus chastised? Why does He put cross upon cross upon my galled shoulders and crush me into the dust with heaviness of sorrow?" Peace, child of God, peace! Your Father loves you–love
Him in return–and let your love assure you that it is not possible for Him to measure out to you a drachma of sorrow more than is needed, nor a grain of bitterness more than your soul absolutely requires for its spiritual health! The exclamation, then, of Jacob was sadly bitter, both towards God and man. If it had not been for unbelief it had never dishonored his lips.
Observe that this speech was rather carnal than spiritual. You see more of human affections than of Divine Graceworked faith–more of the calculator than the Believer–more of Jacob than of Israel.
Jacob is more the man and less the man of God than we might have expected him to have been. See how he dwells upon his bereavements! "Joseph," that dear name, as it brought up the beloved Rachel before his mind, wrung the old man's heart.
"Joseph is not." Alas, that wound was still bleeding! Then, "Simeon is not." The reckless, daring, valorous Simeon is fallen in the stranger's land! Then, worst of all, Benjamin, the dear name intertwined with the saddest of his funerals–the mother's "Benoni," and the father's, "Benjamin"–the last and dearest must be taken away.
You see it is the father all through–the loving parent thinking only of his children–the natural affections predominating. You see nothing here of the grandeur of faith, nothing of the nobility of Job when he said, "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away.
Blessed be the name of the Lord." Here we meet with no such question as that of the Patriarch of Uz–"Shall we receive good at the hand of the Lord, and shall we not, also, receive evil?" Jacob acts like a wayward child, vexed and out of temper, crying against its father. He manifests a petulant spirit tempted by the natural promptings of the flesh to rebel against God.
For awhile the work of the Spirit was beclouded and eclipsed in that venerable man of God. And so, Brethren, we, also, must set ourselves upon our watchtower lest by any means we suffer even the allowable affections of the flesh to overshadow our spirit and dim the luster of the work of Divine Grace. Jesus wept, and therefore we may weep. Sorrow is licensed by the Redeemer's example. Our Lord was no stoic, and He would not have His people restrain natural emotions. We are bound to sorrow when we are afflicted and chastened of the Lord. But though Jesus wept, He did not murmur. Though He sorrowed, yet He did not repine. There is a boundary beyond which our mourning must not pass.
Jacob might well have said, "Joseph is not. Simeon is a prisoner and Benjamin is to be taken away from me. The cup is bitter, and if it is possible, O Lord, let it pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but Yours be done." And then he might have burst into a flood of tears and there would have been no sin in it all, but much of sacred tenderness. But he went too far–his natural affections, instead of taking their proper place, usurped the place in which faith should have sat supreme. He did not merely give his feelings vent, but mastery. He not only wept, but salted his tears with murmuring. And this was an evil thing.
Notice, dear Brothers and Sisters, in the case before us, the Patriarch's unbelieving observation was quite unwarranted by his past history. He had been a man of troubles from his youth up. He fled from his father's house to be an exile. He laid himself down with a stone for his pillow and the hedges for his curtains–but with the angels for his watchers. And did he find the solitude of Luz and the desolation of that lonely place to be against him? Ah, no! He dreamed that matchless dream in which a ladder was set between earth and Heaven, and the Covenant God appeared to him and made a Covenant with him and sent him on his way rejoicing!
Could Jacob think of Bethel, and say, "All these things are against me"?
And when afterwards, more memorable still, he came back with his wives and those very children over whom he now grieves, did not Jehovah preserve him? Could he forget Peniel and the place where he wrestled and prevailed at the brook Jabbok? Could he forget an infuriated brother with a band of 400 men sworn to take his life come to destroy him–and a brother justly incensed–against whom Jacob had done a great wrong? Esau was then close upon him to strike the mother with the children–did Jacob, then, find that all things were against him? Did not Esau fall upon his neck and kiss him? Did not God deliver His servant? And so, again, at Shechem, when the nations of the land would have avenged the blood of the Shechemites who had been so treacherously slain by his sons. Did not the Lord bade them touch not His anointed and do His Prophet no harm? And did not Jacob walk in safety among tribes thirsty for his blood?
Thus, looking back upon the past and remembering the Covenant which God had made with him, it was not consistent that Jacob should speak as he did. It was more consistent with the past to have said, "Out of this difficulty I shall arise, for the Lord is with me." It was consistent with his past experience for him to have commanded his sons, "Whatsoever the Lord does, let us accept it at His hands, for He has not forsaken us in the past, neither will He desert us in days to come." That would have been faith! But oh, how often you and I forget the steps already trod–and all the mercies which attended them–and fear that God will forsake us and become our enemy!
The Ebenezers which we have raised, do they count for nothing?
His love in times past, has that no argument in it for the present and for the future? Will we not say with David, "Because You have been my help, therefore in the shadow of Your wings will I rejoice"? He has been with us in 10 troubles–can we not trust Him for the eleventh? We went through fire and water. Men did ride over our heads. Yet He brought us out into a wealthy place and set our feet in a large room, and can we not rely upon Him now that new difficulties obstruct our path? Yes, Beloved, we will learn from the past, for the lesson of our experience is that the Lord has not forsaken them that trust Him, and they that wait upon Him shall never be ashamed or confused, world without end.
Still keeping to Jacob's exclamation, let me observe that it was altogether erroneous. Not a syllable that he spoke was absolutely true. "Joseph is not." And yet, poor Jacob, Joseph is! You think the beasts have devoured him, but he is ruler over all the land of Egypt–and you shall kiss his cheeks before long. "Simeon is not."
Wrong again, good father, for Simeon is alive, though for his good, to cool his hot and headlong spirit, Joseph has laid him by the heels a little. He had been much too furious in killing the Shechemites and in other deeds of blood. Joseph knows this and is doing his brother a service that may change his character through life by keeping him a little while in captivity!
And as to Benjamin, whom you say they wish to take away–he is to go and see his brother, Joseph, who longs to embrace him and will return him to you in peace. Not one of all these things is against you. Joseph is sent to Egypt to feed you in the famine and to cherish you in your old age–so as to make your last days your best days–and to save the house of Israel, and in fact, all the nations of the earth, alive! As for Simeon, good comes out of that, and that is not against you. And as for Benjamin, he shall be preserved to you, and you, too, shall go down and dwell in the land and rejoice exceedingly. Everything is for you!
Now, usually, our unbelief is a great liar. Our best things are reckoned by unbelief to be our worst. God sends His mercies to us in black envelopes, and we sit down crying over their dismal covering and dare not open the letter and read the heavenly news written within! The Lord sends His blessings in rumbling wagons, and we are so frightened at the sound as almost to lose the choice contents. Well does the hymn put it–
"You fearful saints, fresh courage take,
The clouds you so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head."
Our best days have been those which we thought our worst.
Probably we are never so much in prosperity as when plunged in adversity. No summer days contribute so much to the healthy growth of our souls as those sharp wintry nights which are so trying to us. We fear that we are being destroyed, and our inner life is at that moment being most effectually preserved. Oh, if we read them aright, all things are for us! We are a thousand fools in one to be quibbling at the Divine dispensation, and saying, "All these things are against me."
Jacob was wrong in every jot and tittle of what he said, and so usually are we. Being wrong in judgment, the good old man was led to unwise acting and speaking, for he said, "My son shall not go down with you." He would not yield to his sons. He was determined that Benjamin should not leave him. Simeon he seemed content to leave in prison, although he ought to have sent his sons back in the hope of bringing their poor brother out of bondage. And he ought to have been willing to run the risk of losing Benjamin rather than to have all the rest of his family die of starvation. But the old man resolutely sets his face and perhaps stamps his foot, and tells them, "No!" Never with his consent should Benjamin be trusted with them. And to this resolve he stands until they are nearly starving, and then he says, "If I am bereaved of my children, I am bereaved."
The unbelieving generally do stupid things. We conclude that God is against us and then we act in such a way as to bring troubles upon ourselves which otherwise would not have come. To stand still and see the salvation of God is a grand position for a believing soul, but to run headlong–cloud or no cloud, guide or no guide–is to fall into the ditch, to lose ourselves in the dark woods and to bring upon ourselves unnumbered ills. Let us take heed of unbelief, since it confuses the judgment and dishonors God. And notice, once more, that good old Jacob lived to find, in actual experience, that he had been wrong from beginning to end. We do not all live to see what fools we have been, but Jacob did. I wonder, when the wagons came and he was quite sure they came from Joseph, what he thought of that speech, "All these things are against me"?
And when he came to Egypt, and Joseph came to meet him, and they fell upon each other's necks–I wonder whether it did not half choke him to think, "I once said, 'all these things are against me.' "
When the old soul went tottering about the land of Goshen, leaning on his staff, with his mind full of all the glory of his darling Joseph.
When he was enjoying a brilliant old age, at last. When he saw, day by day, how Joseph was honored, and how great he was, I think he must often have sought out a little corner to weep in and to confess, "Lord, how wicked was I to say, 'All these things are against me,' when I have lived to see You dealing with me with a Father's tenderness, and with the wisdom and loving kindness of a gracious
God."
If we are not, in this world, permitted to see the good results of all our troubles, at any rate we shall behold them in the next. And if such things as tears of joy will be allowed on the other side of the river, some of us will shed abundance of them! Oh, if regrets might mingle there, how we shall regret that we rashly anticipated the results of Divine action and were so unwise as to misinterpret the Master's mind! At any rate, we will string our harps to noble tunes and this shall be the part of our celestial minstrelsy, "The Lord lives, and blessed be our Rock who out of much tribulation has brought His servants, and through their tribulation has helped them to obtain the victory and to enter into their eternal rest." Thus much upon the exclamation of unbelief, for higher themes await us.
II. Turn now to the 38 th chapter of Isaiah, and the 16 thverse, where you have THE PHILOSOPHY OFEXPERIENCE.
"O Lord, by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit." Unbelief says, "All these things are against me."
Enlightened experience says, "In all these things is the life of my spirit." The passage is taken from the prayer of Hezekiah after he was raised from his sick bed. He describes the bitterness of his soul in his chattering, like the crane or the swallow, but he comes to the conclusion that all these trials and afflictions and approaches to the gates of the grave made up the life of mortal men–and that by them the life of their spirit is served!
Beloved, this is a great and instructive Truth of God. Our spirits, under God, live by passing through the sorrows of the present, for first, let me remind you that by these trials and afflictions we live because they are medicinal. There are spiritual diseases which would corrupt our spirit if not checked, kept down and destroyed as to their reigning power by the daily cross which the Lord lays upon our shoulders. Just as the fever must be held in check by the bitter draught of quinine, so must the bitter cup of affliction rebuke our rising pride and worldliness. We would exalt ourselves above measure, and provoke the Lord to jealousy against us, were it not that trouble lays us low.
None of us shall know, until we read our biography in the light of Heaven, from what inbred sins, foul corruptions, damnable filth and detestable lusts we have been delivered by being driven again and again along the fiery road of affliction. Adversities are the sharp knives with which God does cut from us the deadly ulcers of our sins–these are the two-edged swords with which He slays our enemies and His own which lurk within us. He must prune us and trim us as the gardener his trees, otherwise we shall bring forth no fruit. Therefore by all these things which Jacob declared to be against him, we find the life of our spirit wisely protected.
Afflictions, again, are stimulates. We are all apt to grow slothful. I know not whether it is so with all Believers, but we of gross and bilious temperament find ourselves oppressed by the spirit of slumbering. But personal sickness, or relative grief, (which is sharper, still), or serious pecuniary losses–these things stir our sluggish blood and make our hearts beat at a healthier rate. There is an old story in the Greek annals, of a soldier under Antignous who had a disease about him, an extremely painful one, likely to bring him soon to the grave. Always first in the ranks was this soldier, and in the hottest part of the fray he was always to be seen leading the van. He was the bravest of the brave because his pain prompted him to fight that he might forget it.
He feared not death because he knew that in any case he had not long to live. Antignous, who greatly admired the valor of his soldier, finding out that he suffered from a disease, had him cured by one of the most eminent physicians of the day. But alas, from that moment the warrior was absent from the front of the battle! He now sought his ease, for, as he remarked to his companions, he had something worth living for–health, home, family, and other comforts–and he would not risk his life, now, as before.
So when our troubles are many, we are made courageous in serving our God. We feel that we have nothing to live for in this world and we are driven by hope of the world to come to exhibit zeal, self-denial, and industry. But how often is it otherwise in better times? Then the joys and pleasures of this world make it hard for us to remember the world to come and we sink into inglorious ease. Master, we thank You for our griefs, for they have quickened us. We bless You for winds and waves, for these have driven us away from treacherous shores. Before we were afflicted we went astray, but now have we kept Your Word, by Your Grace.
Trials and troubles touch the life of our spirit because their endurance is strengthening. They have the same effect upon the spiritual man as athletic exercises upon the wrestlers of old. If men would win honor in the Greek games, they denied themselves all luxuries and passed through severe ordeals by which their sinews and muscles were developed. And so the Lord puts His children through severe training that He may develop their manhood–that their patience may learn to endure hardness–that their faith may learn steadfastness. Rough winds root the oaks, so our afflictions confirm us in the promises of God. We had been babes forever, and never have been able to walk alone if the Lord had not put us on our feet and allowed us to fall again and again–each time to rise stronger, acquiring the art of walking by our bruises and broken knees.
Our troubles are a great educational process. We are at school now, and are not yet fully instructed. What little we know, we scarcely know. And what we have learned is so little that we are, most of us, only in our A, B, Cs. Yet, we cannot read words of one syllable, and it is right that we should continue at school till we are made meet to enter into the loftier company beyond the stars. Now, who learns so well anywhere as on the sick bed, or in the midst of tribulation? I tell you, Sirs, there are days in a man's life when he learns more in an hour than in 70 years of ease. I shall not give instances, but there have been such days to some of us, of late, and may the Lord make us wiser thereby!
Blessed is the man who is thus corrected and instructed–to whom the Master opens up the Word, and the heart, and the promise by fire-light shed from the furnace. The rod is a great teacher. I do not know whether boys always need the rod to make them learn, but I am sure men do. And some of us have skin so thick that we need to be struck everyday. As David puts it, "All the day long have I been plagued, and chastened every morning," as if he never began the day without his whipping, and never passed through without a repetition of the scourging. We must take up our cross daily if we would be disciples of Jesus.
So, too, trials and tribulations are the life of our spirit because they are preparative for that higher life in which the spirit shall truly live. Jacob would hardly have been fit for the luxury of Egypt if he had not been trained by his griefs. That happy period before his death, in which he dwelt in perfect ease and peace, at the close of which, leaning upon his staff, he bore such a blessed testimony to the faithfulness of God–he would not have been fit to enjoy it–it would have been disastrous to him if he had not been prepared for it by the sorrows of Succoth. So we shall be made meet to be partakers in the inheritance in light by traversing the wilderness before reaching the promised land.
This is the place for washing our robes–yonder is the place for wearing them! This is the place for tuning our harps, and discord is inevitable to that work–but yonder is the abode of unbroken harmony! We fret and grieve and vex ourselves today, but by-andby we shall rest in happiness unbroken! Let us have courage! The end will more than repay us for the toil of the means, and the rest shall make up for the labor of the way. Be of good comfort, and instead, from now on, of concluding that outward trials are against you, agree with Hezekiah in this wise sentence, "By these things men live."
Let me only detain you one minute, to ask you whether, in looking back upon your life, are you not compelled to feel that the best parts of your character have been produced in you by your troubles? Have not your noblest actions been worked by you in adversity? You had not been, today, what you are, nor where you are, nor on the road to Heaven as you now are, if you had not been afflicted. How much we owe to the anvil and the hammer! Would you alter your trials, now, if you could? You would have arranged your lot very differently sometime ago–but would you now? Even at this distance, too short to get the full perspective, and to understand it thoroughly–would you have your life changed?
I know you say devoutly, "Goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life. Every dark and bending line has met in the center of immutable love." Well, then, if it has been so until now, do you think the Lord is about to change? Do you imagine that He gives His best first? Is it not always His rule to keep the best wine until the last? Oh, how it has cheered and comforted me of late to think that I have always found my God to be most good to me, and if possible–after many sharp trials, He seems to have been better! Of late He has seemed more kind and gracious to me than at