The Little Gleaner Part 30

Here are exhibited, likewise, the gracious operations of His power and wisdom who says, "The ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion, with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads." Had his soul's salvation rested on his believing, as some would tell us, he had not have been where he is. Grace begins, grace carries on, grace performs, and finally completes, the grand work of eternal redemption.

In this brief narrative appears, moreover, the peace and joy a knowledge of sin forgiven and peace secured produces in the soul. Oh, the blissful truth, "Redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace." To taste this, to know this, exceeds ten thousand worlds of sordid treasure--transcends the highest delights of this terrestrial sphere. How did his happy soul rejoice "with joy unspeakable and full of glory"!

But he has long entered his rest. He has forgotten to mourn, and loudly sings the praises of the Lamb.

Where is my reader? Is he pursuing the wind, and hunting after the shadowy trifles of earth? Is he attempting by creature works to make his peace with G.o.d?

Doomed to total disappointment and eternal condemnation are all those who die in such hostility to the way of peace and Heaven's declared will! Oh, delusion! worse than madness! "He that _believeth not_ shall be d.a.m.ned!" No salvation but by a living faith in the Lamb of G.o.d and His all-perfect work.

PROMPT KINDNESS.

The fact that we are too apt to suppress our kindest emotions for loved ones, and withhold our words of approbation, is but too frequently apparent. This is often done with the best intent, fearing that more cordial expression and warmer approval may savour of flattery, and very frequently it is the outcome of pure carelessness or indifference. In this connection it is well to consider the words of Horace Mann. Says he:--

"Do not keep the alabaster boxes of your love and tenderness sealed up until your friends are dead. Fill their lives with sweetness. Speak approving, cheering words while their hearts can be thrilled and made happier by them. The kind things you mean to say when they are gone, say before they go. The flowers you mean to send for their coffins, send to brighten their homes before they leave them. If my friends have alabaster boxes laid away, full of fragrant perfumes of sympathy and affection, which they mean to break over my dead body, I would rather they bring them out in my weary and troubled hours, and open them, that I may be refreshed and cheered by them while I need them. I would rather have a plain coffin without flowers, a funeral without eulogy, than life without the sweetness of love and tenderness and sympathy. Let us learn to anoint our friends beforehand for their burial. Post-mortem kindness does not cheer the burdened spirit. Flowers on the coffin cast no fragrance backward over the weary way."

BIBLE ENIGMA.

An unknown king.

A place from which the Canaanites were not driven.

One of the dukes of Edom.

A Shuhite.

A place built by the sons of Elpaal.

Where were they once who are now made nigh to G.o.d?

The Hebrew name for "pavement."

A name which means "the tower."

Something which G.o.d used to give a sign to encourage a king.

The initials and finals form two t.i.tles of Christ.

CLARA ELLIS (Aged 14 years).

A FUGITIVE IN THE HIMALAYA MOUNTAINS.

In the summer of 1852 Colonel B----, on an excursion to the snowy range of the Himalayas, had proceeded into the mountains some twenty miles beyond any known habitation of civilized man, when the natives told him that, in a village near by, a white man was living in concealment.

Incredible as it appeared, Colonel B---- followed his guides to a little native hut with mud walls and roof of gra.s.s. Taking a peep in at the low entrance, sure enough, there he spied an elderly person with a white face, but in the most shabby dress of the natives, who, on catching a glance of the intruder, rushed into a dark corner of his miserable hovel, out of which the most earnest entreaties and a.s.surances of good intentions scarcely brought him.

He was the son of an English gentleman who, like thousands of the high-bred youths of England, had come to India to procure a t.i.tle to a Government pension, and, after remaining here ten or twenty years, return home and live in ease. Like not a few who come to this land, supposing he could scarcely avoid becoming rich, he had run recklessly into debt, until he was threatened with a term of years in close confinement unless he should immediately cancel his liabilities, to do which he was totally incapable. He fled beyond the limits of the British territory to the place where Colonel B---- found him, where he had subsisted for some fifteen years, in the manner of the wild natives around him, not excepting their revolting vices.

Colonel B---- told him of a debt he owed, which, if not discharged, might consign him to chains and darkness, not for a term of years, but for eternity; begged him earnestly to seek to escape that everlasting imprisonment in the dungeons of the unutterably miserable; prayed with him, and gave him a few tracts, which, like many good men, Colonel B---- is in the habit of taking with him wherever he goes.

Two years after, he again visited him, and found that the seed he had been permitted to sow was springing up. On reading the tract, "_It is the Last Time_," he could have no peace of mind until he found a.s.surance of his greatest debt being cancelled by the blood of Christ.

His brother, who was receiving a large salary in India, was delighted to be permitted to meet his earthly liabilities, and requested him to return to England and live the remainder of his days in comfortable ease. But no; he said he had opposed and reviled the Christian religion in India, and here he wished to do what he could to counteract his past evil influence.

He is now at S----, daily a.s.sisting a missionary in proclaiming to the heathen the only way of eternal life. May He whose grace has raised him thus far out of the loathsome den, lead him still onward, and make him an eminent aid and ornament to the faith which he so long despised and reproached.

In what various ways does G.o.d enable him to do good whose heart is set upon it! The author of that tract probably never thought of its floating over the waves fifteen thousand miles, fluttering on the breeze another thousand miles into the heart of a heathen country, amidst the bears and wolves and wild men of the Himalayas, lighting upon a poor degraded immortal, "twice dead and plucked up by the roots," and proving him a son and heir of the Lord G.o.d Almighty, a being to reign on the throne of the universe for ever with the King of kings. "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of G.o.d!"

A FEW WORDS FROM THE DUMB.

It is the glory of Englishmen to stand up for the defenceless, and to scorn the cowardly oppression of the weak. Surely, then, those who own and those who use ponies and donkeys will be willing to give a fair hearing to a pleader for the helpless, dumb creatures.

If they could speak for themselves, would they not say--"Give us some rest one day in the week, and we will do all the more for you the other six, and last the longer for it. You yourself work the better, and live the longer, for one day's rest.

"Don't beat our sore sides so hard and so often, and we shall be stronger and better servants to you. You know how oppression only makes _you_ set up your back, but you will do anything for a kind master.

"Don't ride and race us about till we are ready to drop, and our wind is almost broken, and we are reeking with heat and rough usage.

"Pray let us have a little more water when we stand weary and thirsty, with our poor dry tongues unable to ask for it. _You_ have felt the suffering of thirst.

"And for pity's sake," the ponies would say, "loosen this torturing bearing-rein. We toss and shake our heads, or we try to keep them still, and nothing gives us a moment's ease. You, master, would suffer severely if _your_ head were held in such a position, and we could do more work, and much better, without it.

"Please remember that we can always hear your voice, and shall understand what you want us to do so much more quickly, if you speak to us quietly, than if you roar at us, and drag our tender, worn mouths about. We get so puzzled and frightened when you're in a rage with us, that we only flounder and plunge, and make you more and more angry.

"Our last entreaty is that, when we get old and past our work, you will not let our poor, wasted bodies stagger along under some load, when our lives have been spent in your service, but that you will reward us by having us immediately put out of our pain."

Think how much you owe to mercy yourself, and remember, "The merciful man doeth good to his beast."

ONE LINK GONE.