you O my dear readers, who are poor in this world, did you but know what it is to make God your friend, would find him your all-sufficient friend. Even to hoar hairs would he carry you. (1s. xlvi. 4.) He would save you in six troubles, yea, even in seven. (Job. v. 19.) He calls for your faith in him, and then he says, "According to your faith be it unto you." (Matt. ix. 29.) Methinks I hear one say, "Aye, if I could believe God to be my friend, I could trust him, but I am more disposed to think of him as my enemy. When I would commit some little dishonesty to increase my gains, 1 directly think, 'God will surely punish me for this.' When I work on the Sabbath, something within me cries, 'God is angry with you.' When I am sick, I think, 'O, I hope I shall get well, for I should be afraid to die and go before God in judgment; he will surely cast me into hell.' Indeed, I do not like to think of God at all, for I am very sure that he is indeed my enemy; my conscience tells me he is indeed so: however I trust to providence that I shall get on as well as other poor people do." Ah, my dear friend, let me tell you that God and providence are, in effect, the same. Providence is God's administration of his government in the world. God having first created all things, still upholds all things by a kind of continued creation, and has the entire disposal of all things: so that not even a sparrow falls to the ground without him. God claims to himself the dispensation of temporal good and evil. "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things." (Isaiah xlv. 7.) And as the eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good, (Prov. xv. 3.) so he will show himself strong in the behalf of those who fear him, by overruling human events to work for their good. Secondly, I would address those who are neither poor nor sick, but who call themselves prosperous, healthy, and happy. Prosperity, health, and happiness are valuable possessions. But then every thinking mind will ask itself, "On what security do I hold 66 these ?" Can I take a long lease of them, at least for time? Common observation will answer negatively. A day, an hour may make such changes, that fortune, health, and worldly happiness, like a well-freighted vessel, may be totally wrecked by a sudden storm. The mind of man, when not in a thoughtless and sordid state, naturally seeks something which it considers as substantial good; and those have most prided themselves who considered that good to be within rather than without them. Thus the philosophers of old held riches and honours in contempt compared with wisdom. It is reported of Simonides, that being in a ship which was wrecked, while every one was endeavouring to save what he could swim away with, Simonides refused to encumber himself with any thing; and when asked the reason, he replied, "I carry all my treasures within me." The sentiment of the philosopher was noble, though he was mistaken as to the real value of his treasures. The Christian alone can say in all changes, "I carry all my treasures within me." He alone has Christ within him, the hope of glory; and he can say with triumph, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?" (Rom. viii. 35.) My dear readers, who are in prosperity, I would ask you the question, I asked Eleanor Dunn on her dying bed, "What is now your value of Christ ?" If you cannot lay your hand on your heart, as she did, and say, "He is here," then are you indeed very pitiable, very poor, and very miserable. There may be but a step between you and death; for though now your tree may look green, the sentence may have already passed, "Cut it down, why cumbereth it the ground?" I see you then on a death bed, silent, perhaps, rather from despair than submission. Your friends, conscious that you have lived without Christ, are yet afraid now to agitate your mind by pressing on you the danger your soul is in. Disease may render you even physically incapable of mental exertion. You will then want a friend who can take you by the hand, 1 and guide you safely through the dark valley, saying, "Fear not, I am with thee." (Is. xliii. 5.) The friend who alone is able to do this is Christ. Your parent cannot do it for you, your child cannot do it for you, your husband cannot, your wife cannot, your friend, who was dearer to you than your own soul, cannot do it. They may look on in agony because they cannot. You must go, but you must go alone; alone through a valley where no one ever passed safely alone. Oh! I would accept none but Christ to guide me through that valley. Then I could say, "I will fear no evil, for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort " (Ps. xxiii. 4.) But if you would desire Christ to be with you then, you must accept his offers of himself to you now. me Finally, this little narrative may afford encouragement to the poor and afflicted Christian, who may behold in Eleanor Dunn an example of poverty, provision, and a peaceful end. In what words can I address you, my dear Christian friends, so well as those in which your Lord and Master has already addressed you, when he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said, "Blessed be ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are ye that hunger now, for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now, for ye shall laugh." (Luke vi. 20, 21.) Is your poverty extreme? do not let this lead you to doubt either of the love of God or the care of providence. God has mentioned it as his purpose in his church: "I will leave in the midst of thee an afflicted and poor people, and they shall trust in the name of the Lord." (Zeph. iii. 12.) It were endless for me to quote all the scriptural encouragements given to the pious poor. They are so numerous, that could faith but grasp them all in time of need, the poor and afflicted servants of God would indeed "Ride upon the high places of the earth." (Isa. lviii. 14.) "Dwelling on high." (Isa. xxxiii. 16.) For your comfort and assistance, I have selected at few of these promises on which you may sweetly meditate whenever you are tempted to repine or despond. See Job v. 15, 16; xxxiv. 19-28; xxxvi. 6-15: Luke iv. 18; vii. 22 SELECT PASSAGE. It is no argument that Christ is not in the ship, because tem- FRIENDLY VISITOR. No. 258.] MARCH, 1840. [VOL. 22. "THERE IS BUT A STEP BETWEEN ME AND DEATH." 1 SAMUEL xx. 3. "The Lord killeth and maketh alive, he bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up." SAM. xi. 6. If I had travelled into some region where few, if any, had travelled before, and of which region no account had been published, many would be the enquiries as to what I had seen. I have been, reader, not where you may, but where you must go some day or other; that is, I have been in the jaws of death, though the Lord, in mercy, has brought me back again for a little season. What I have gone through, I would try to make known before the impression of the scene is weakened by returning health. May this be written as from my sick chamber; and may it be received as the testimony of one who has been in close conference with "the last enemy." In what state was the writer when God brought him to this interview? He was in the very condition in which multitudes of others now are. He knew the grand scheme of man's deliverance by the blood and righteousness of the Lord Jesus-he knew the necessity of sanctification by the Spirit of Christ- and that "without holiness, no man shall see the Lord." This he knew, because he had heard it from the pulpit, and read it in his Bible; but the vitality, the life of these views, he knew not. Like the soldier who has never been in action, he was a stranger to what the conflict was--the grapple with death was new to him-he had thought of death, but never met him eye to eye. Oh! what a difference this makes! it is all the difference which exists between the shadow and the substance. That I was a sinner, there was no room to deny; for my conscience talked loudly of many transgressions. But C |