Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

of men of such a sublime sacredness as Dr. Owen; but for which it would almost appear indispensable, that the spiritual life should be nourished in solitude, and that, afar from the din, and the broil, and the tumult of ordinary life, the candidate for heaven should give himself up to the discipline of prayer and of constant watchfulness. It is, indeed, most humbling to reflect on the paltry ascent that we have yet made along that hidden walk, by which it is that the pilgrim travels towards Zion; and how short we are, after years of something like earnestness, from those untouched and untrodden eminences which are so far above us. Where, may most of us ask, is our delight in God? Where is the triumph of our serene confidence in him, over all the anxieties of this world? Where that love to Christ, and that rejoicing in him, which, in the days of primitive Christianity, were so oft exemplified by the believer, and formed, in truth, the hourly and familiar habits of his soul? Do we count it enough, in the absence of this world's smiles, and when the whole sunshine of them is withdrawn from the bosom, that we still live amid the bright anticipations of Faith, with the protection of heaven above us, and the full radiance of eternity before us? These are the achievements to which we must yet press onward; and perhaps the sensation of a pressure that has yet been ineffectual, is the only evidence, in regard to them, which we can allege of a gracious tendency at least, if not of a gracious acquirement. It is the proof, not of what we have reached, but of the direction in which we are moving. And, at the very time that we are burdened under a feeling of our deficiencies, may we, from our constant inclination to surmount them, and our many unsatisfied longings after the standard that is higher than ourselves, gather some perhaps of our most precious and legitimate encouragements in the work of self-examination.

St. Andrews, April, 1825.

T. C.

[blocks in formation]
« AnteriorContinua »