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256

FIDELITY IN LITTLE.

whatever they do, "do it heartily as to the Lord, and not unto men." The effect of faithful labours in any condition, and, above all, in the lower departments of practical duty, of which this is the genuine spirit and principle, is not to be estimated by common rules. "God gives seed to the sower, and bread to the eater.” Under his influence the humblest sphere may at all times produce the opportunities of substantial usefulness, among the old or the young, among the weak or the afflicted, among the deserted or the helpless. And, what deserves our particular attention, the means which are of most importance, and which must be chiefly employed in Christian labours, are in substance the same in every condition-godliness and good sensean active perseverance in plain duties and in practical fidelity-an unfeigned and habitual humility, with regard to that which is either attempted or attained a steadfast faith in the reality both of the grace and providence of God, and a devout and animating dependence on him for every portion both of the means and of the success. No man, therefore, is entitled to consider the narrowness of the situation in which Providence has placed him, as excluding him from the opportunities of active and substantial fidelity to our great master. The duties of every individual most certainly lie within the peculiar sphere allotted him by Providence; and there, and only there, though he should have in his hands but "a very little," which he can either employ or neglect, can his peculiar duty be fulfilled or his personal fidelity be shown. But industry, integrity, and perseverance, sanctified by the fear of God, and sealed by the spirit of promise, are, in every situation in which any individual can be placed, capable of producing effects, far beyond the measure of his visible talents; and may, with as much certainty, be found in the humblest as in the most eminent conditions of mankind. What a good man does heartily, and does in the fear of God, he will seldom fail to do well; and whatever discouragements he may have to surmount, either from external difficulties, or from limited talents, practice and experience will ultimate. ly convince him that, by the blessing of God, pure in

DIVINE SERVICE AMONG THE COVENANTERS. 257

tentions have a power which belongs neither to station nor to wisdom.

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THE rite of baptism had not thus been performed for several months in the Kirk of Lanark. It was now the hottest time of persecution; and the inhabitants of that parish found other places, in which to worship God and celebrate the ordinances of religion. It was now the Sabbath-day, and a small congregation of about a hundred souls had met for divine service in a place of worship more magnificent than any temple that human hands had ever built to Deity. Here, too, were three children about to be baptized. The congregation had not assembled to the toll of the bell,but each heart knew the hour and observed it; for there are a hundred sun-dials among the hills, woods, moors, and fields; and the shepherd and the peasant see the hours passing by them in sunshine and shadow. The church in which they were assembled was hewn, by God's hand, out of the eternal rocks. A river rolled its way through a mighty chasm of cliffs, several hundred feet high, of which the one side presented enor mous masses, and the other corresponding recesses, as if the great stone girdle had been rent by a convulsion. The channel was overspread with prodigious fragments of rock or large loose stones, some of them smooth and bare, others containing soil and verdure in their rents and fissures, and here and there crowned with shrubs and trees. The eye could at once command a long stretching vista, seemingly closed and shut up at both extremities by the coalescing cliffs. This majestic reach of river contained pools, streams, rushing shelves, and waterfalls innumerable; and when the water was low, which it now was in the common drought, it was easy to walk up this scene, with the calm blue sky overhead, an utter and sublime solitude. On looking up, the soul was bowed down by the feeling of that prodigious

258 DIVINE SERVICE AMONG THE COVENANters.

height of unscaleable and often overhanging cliff. Between the channel and the summit of the far extended precipieces, were perpetually flying rooks, and wood-pigeons, and now and then a hawk, filling the profound abyss with their wild cawing, deep murmur, or shrilly shriek. Sometimes a heron would stand erect and still on some little stone island, or rise up like a white cloud along the black walls of the chasm, and disappear. Winged creatures alone could inhabit this region. The fox and wild cat chose more accessible haunts. Yet here came the persecuted Christians and worshipped God, whose hand hung over their heads those magnificent pillars and arches, scooped out those galleries from the solid rock, and laid at their feet the calm water in its transparent beauty, in which they could see themselves sitting in reflected groups, with their Bibles in their hands. Here, upon a semicircular ledge of rocks, over a narrow chasm of which the tiny stream played in a murmuring waterfall, and divided the congregation into two equal parts, sat about a hundred persons, all devoutly listening to their minister, who stood before them on what might well be called a small natural pulpit of living stone. Up to it there led a short flight of steps, and over it waved the canopy of a tall graceful birch tree. This pulpit stood on the middle of the channel, directly facing the congregation, and separated from them by the clear deep sparkling pool into which the scarce heard water poured over the blackened rock. The water, as it left the pool, separated into two streams, and flowed on each side of that altar, thus placing it in an island, whose large mossy stones were richly embowered under the golden blossoms and green tresses of the broom. Divine service was closed, and a row of maidens, all clothed in purest white, came gliding off from the congregation, and crossing the stream on some stepping stones, arranged themselves at the foot of the pulpit, with the infants about to be baptized. The fathers of the infants, just as if they had been in their own kirk, had been sitting there during worship, and now stood up before the minister. The baptismal water, taken from that pellucid pool, was lying consecrated in a small

DIGNITY IN HUMBLE LIFE.

259

hollow of one of the upright stones that formed one side or pillar of the pulpit, and the holy rite proceeded. The rite being over, the religious service of the day was closed by a psalm. The mighty rocks hemmed in the holy sound, and sent it in a more compacted volume, clear, sweet. and strong, up to Heaven. When the psalm ceased, an echo, like a spirit's voice, was heard dying away high up among the magnificent architecture of the cliffs, and once more might be noticed in the silence the reviving voice of the waterfall.

ON DIGNIFIED CONDUCT IN HUMBLE LIFE.

IN the humbler conditions of life, we seldom look, perhaps for the honourable or the becoming. The cold eye of prosperity seldom bends to examine the scenes of poverty and sorrow; and our delicacy (as we have sometimes the impiety to call it) is hurt at the accompaniments which ever follow misery;-yet, in these low and neglected scenes, who is there that has not seen instances of " the love of things that are excellent?" Who is there that has not had the blessing of witnessing-in some, the most dignified submission to the hand of chastening Heaven! in others, the most heroic struggle with wretchedness, ere the sufferers would reveal the wants under which they laboured!in some, the most magnanimous adherence to truth and honesty, although every thing else that was dear to them should perish!-and in others, that silent but eloquent gratitude, which is told by actions and not by words, and which, though it never reaches the ear of man, yet nightly returns in the midnight prayer to God! It is the same with every other condition or occupation of life; and whatever are the scenes upon which we look, we find always some who confer honour, and others who confer dishonour upon themsome, who have attained every esteem and respect, which their station could admit of or bestow-others who, insensible to every generous ambition, have suf

260

HYMN ON THE SEASONS.*

fered themselves to go on with the crowd around them, and are now content to wear out an ignoble life, without dignity, without usefulness, and without peace.

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HYMN ON THE SEASONS.

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THESE, as they change, Almighty Father, these
Are but the varied God. The rolling year
Is full of Thee. Forth in the pleasing Spring
Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love.
Wide flush the fields; the softening air is balm;
Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles;
And every sense, and every heart is joy. -
Then comes thy glory in the summer months,
With light and heat refulgent. Then thy sun
Shoots full perfection through the swelling year:
And oft thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks;
And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve, the
By brooks and groves, in hollow-whispering gales,
Thy bounty shines in Autumn unconfin'd,
And spreads a common feast for all that lives...
In Winter awful Thou! with clouds and storms
Around thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest r
roll'd,y
Majestic darkness! on the whirlwind's wing,78]
Riding sublime, thou bidst the world adore,
And humblest nature with thy northern blast.
Mysterious round! what skill, what force divine,
Deep-felt, in these appear! A simple train,
Yet so delightful, mix'd with such kind art,ȁ
Such beauty and beneficence combin'd;
Shade, unperceiv'd, so softening into shade
And all so forming an harmonious whole,
That, as they still succeed, they ravish still.
But wandering oft, with brute unconscious gaze,T
Man marks not thee, marks not the mighty hand,
That, ever busy, wheels the silent spheres;
Works in the secret deep; shoots, steaming, thence
The fair profusion that o'erspreads the spring: 97
Flings from the sun direct the flaming day;

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