SECOND WEEK-SUNDAY. ADVANTAGES OF VICISSITUDE. WHEN the earliest snowdrop pierces the dark earth, like morning springing out of night, and gives promise of the coming genial season, the impatient spirit hails the tender harbinger, and already, in anticipation, revels in vernal delights. But many But many a pinching frost, and many a splashy thaw, and many a shower of sleet, must be endured, before winter will "sound his trumpet in the blast, and call his storms away." And many a fair and promising bud must be checked in its efforts to struggle into life, beneath the incongruous alternations of cold and sunshine. Yet the sunbeam which bids the sap ascend, and summons the bud into existence, is not more salutary, or more necessary for the security of the future fruit, than is the storm which repels its too hasty growth, and seems to threaten its destruction. Variety seems the very essence of health and vigor in the natural world, as it is in the moral. Who could endure the tedious sameness of skies ever blue, a sun ever shining, earth ever green, and streams ever gliding in tranquil brightness? The very deliciousness of Nature's beauties would, after a time, render them nauseous. The weary eye would long for the interposing canopy of clouds, and the friendly return of evening. A patch of wilderness and moorland would be hailed with joy; and flood and rock enough to form a cataract, might serve to chase the lassitude, which would otherwise steal upon us. The mind is not allowed to stagnate in one train of contemplations, by the uniformity of surrounding objects, any more than its dwelling-place, the body, is allowed to become listless and enervated by the sameness of its sensations. We learn to appreciate our comforts by means of occasional privations, and find reason to adore the majesty and grace of the beneficent Being, who not only smiles in the sunbeam, but frowns in the storm. The hues of bliss more brightly glow, "See the wretch, that long has toss'd "The meanest flow'ret of the vale, The simplest note that swells the gale, So says the poet, with equal beauty and correctness. Every enjoyment is enhanced by privation; and our necessity of change is a strong evidence of our infirmity, and of the transition state in which we are placed. The Hindoo devotee, who has clenched his fingers till the nails have protruded themselves from the back of his hands, or drawn up a limb, and retained it in one position till its contracted sinews no longer suffer him to wield it, gives evidence that absolute rest is not made for man. However sweet repose may be to a weary pilgrim, beyond a certain point, repose itself will become a weariness. The hungry cannot always feed, nor the thirsty drink for ever. "Man and for ever!" once exclaimed a statesman, in a fine burst of irony,-" Man and for ever!"-Most truly an idle combination,-a contradiction in terms as relates to his sublunary state. Yet man exhibits his unconscious longing after immortality, by his propensity to use terms inapplicable to his present condition. If he loves, he will love for ever: If he is grateful, he will never forget: If he forms a friendship, * Gray's Ode to Vicissitude. it is to be eternal. We talk of for ever, yet there is nothing perpetual, but change; and our ease and enjoyment, in this fleeting scene, depend on that perpetuity of change. There is but One, who is always of one mind, whose purposes stand fast, and all whose actings are uniform. The wisest of men turned his weary eye from the contemplation of that which he found to be vanity and vexation of spirit, and fixed his confidence on this One. “I know,” says he, "that whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing be taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before Him." It is this great Artificer, then, who operates upon the changeful human being; and that which forms our variety, and our vicissitude, is but the recurrence of the same effects after the same causes, and the repetition of the same unchanging laws, which are without variableness in the hand of Him who formed them. Fitly, therefore, is our lot placed in His hand; and while His beneficent contrivance has rendered vicissitude delightful, a much more weighty object is attained under its influence than merely enhancing felicity, or adding pungency to enjoyment. He who knoweth what is in man, sees the necessity of "emptying us from vessel to vessel," as the prophet strikingly remarks, using the figure of one preparing wine, whose purpose is, by each outpouring of the liquor, to leave a portion of the lees behind. The fairest character in our fallen condition, even amongst those who are renewed in the spirit of their minds, retains its alloy of lees, and requires to be dealt with that it may be refined, and have the pure separated from the vile. Scripture is rich in figures, which represent this fact in all the forms which may arouse and fix attention. At one time, the gracious Lord, whose purpose it is to render His people meet for a dwelling in His own presence, describes Himself as a refiner and purifier of silver; adding more heat to the furnace till the object is obtained, while He "sits" to observe the process, and at last sees His own image reflected in the precious metal. At another, He is represented as a vine-dresser, who, when He sees a branch bringing forth fruit, immediately "purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.” In one place, His Gospel is compared to leaven, which introduces its transforming influence into a measure of meal, and continues, till it has operated on the whole mass, and subjected it to a salutary change. In another, Ephraim, when rebuked for his ingratitude and forgetfulness of God, is compared to a cake not turned." He has had no changes, and therefore has forgotten his God; and the consequence is, that "strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not; yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth it not." My Christian reader will readily confess, that his experience has been as that of Ephraim. Has he remained long at ease? Has the world prospered with him? Has his family arisen around him, to honor and to cheer him ? It was not then, that he walked most closely with God; it was not then, that the word was as a light to his feet, and a lamp, without which he dared not move; it was not then, that prayer was his hourly breath. It was then, on the contrary, that false friends or divers worldly pursuits had power to draw him aside, to devour the strength of his faith, the energy of his hope, and the steadfastness of his love; yet he did not perceive it. Nay, he was growing old, and approaching to his account; the silver of years was mingling with his once graceful locks, yet he knew it not. He has been at ease, and suffered loss, and a change in his lot has become necessary to renew the impression of his dependence, his feebleness, his tendency to fall away. That cloak, which hung loosely around the traveller, or was ready to drop off, unobserved, while the sun shone upon him, is resorted to, with eagerness, when the storm begins to beat; and the more rudely the tempest blows, the more closely does he enwrap himself in it. Thus it is with the Divine protection and support. Let the backslider be touched with the rod of adversity, and suddenly, his repentings are kindled togeth er. Turn but one of his earthly delights into a grief, and he returns quickly, to seek, if haply he may revive in his breast, the great privilege of communion with his God, which erewhile had been slighted and treated as a common thing. Open to him the prospect of the grand -the final change to which as a mortal he is exposed, and suddenly his supineness is at a close, and all is hurry to reexamine his evidence, and to recover what, in his days of uniformity and ease, he had lost. Prosperity may leave us at liberty to rejoice while we mark the hand of Providence, but adversity adds to the lesson that of teaching us to bow under it. The hour of gladness may be the hour of thankfulness, but the hour of calamity is that of faith in the promises. It is to the covenant-keeping God that the afflicted spirit turns, and at His footstool is taught to plead all that He has done in time past, and all that He has engaged to do in time to come. It is the hour of painful vicissitude that brings our sins to mind, and with them the realizing conviction that "God requireth that which is past." The brethren of Joseph seem not to have laid their heartless barbarity to the amiable youth to heart, till the great man in the court of King Pharaoh spake roughly to them. Then, when they felt themselves to be despised strangers and foreigners, pleading for bread in an unfamiliar tongue, they remembered their heart-burnings against the guileless boy, and the dry pit in the field, and the perfidious barter by which they at once gratified their malice and their avarice, and the grief of the venerable parent, and their hypocritical sympathy. All this, in the hour of their calamity flashed on their mind, and, without any other association to lead to the subject, they turned to each other and said, "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." Such is the salutary influence of vicissitude; and so wonderfully does our Heavenly Father overrule even disappointment and unwelcome change, for the moral improvement of his rational offspring. M. G. L. D. |