Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

senters.

66

endeavour to have none but religious servants. The misrule of the heads of our ecclesiastical establishment, has brought it to pass that the lower orders are excluded, by the system of pew-letting, from the parish churches; so that the great body of them, who frequent any place of worship, are disThis circumstance, joined to the heady, high-minded," spirit of insubordination to authority, which is everywhere abroad, is the cause that almost all religious servants are dissenters; and as many dissenters are now also schismatics, religious servants commonly think it a point of conscience not to attend the worship of the Church of England, despise her ordinances, and effect a great superiority over their fellow-servants. They generally presume upon their profession of religion, to ensure their enjoying a greater share of the master's favour than the other servants, and commonly make use of this privilege, real or supposed, to neglect their work, and thereby throw an increased burden upon others. The irreligious servants hate them for their pro

fession, and doubly for the cant and hypocrisy, which is productive of increased trouble to themselves. The master has the difficult point of determining how much of the complaints that are made is true, and how much exaggerated by the hatred of religion: and the professors are sure to censure him for not taking their side of the dispute, whether right or wrong.

It is a common snare of Satan, to endeavour to make young Christians of every rank

dissatisfied with their stations: sometimes this is done by suggesting an excess of zeal, in supposing they could glorify God, or be more useful to man in some other sphere; and sometimes by holding out a hope that they might escape the difficulties of the cross which press upon them. Thus the higher want to become clergymen, and the lower desire to go out as missionaries; the single want to be married; and the married lament the difficulties which they suppose the cares of a family present to a close walk with God. But each ought to be sure that he is exactly in the state in which God intends

him to be, and it should be his constant endeavour to remain in it, and to fulfil the duties of it, and in it, as unto Him.

The three several states of husband and wife, parent and child, master and servant, varying in nearness of intimacy, as well as in the depth of mystery which they set forth, define also the limits, and furnish a reason for the limitation of resistance to the command of the superior in the several degrees. No command of the master to the servant ought to be disobeyed, except such as is contrary to the written word of the master's Master, which is in heaven, and such as would oblige the servant to violate the higher duty which might be due to a parent or child, a husband or wife, or to the king. It seems to be a refinement of barbarity that could only be found in a place where Satan's influence was undisputed and unresisted, by which we see that the menstealers in the West Indies command the wretched objects of their fiendish cruelty to be the instruments of torture to their dearest relatives; so that we read in the Jamaica Gazettes of husbands being ordered

to flog their wives, parents their children, &c (Oh God! what horrors are there not yet unrequited in that land! O Lord, hear the sighing of the captive, for there is none that fighteth for him, but only thou, O God.) If a command be given by a parent to violate a duty to a husband or wife, that command ought not to be obeyed. Occasions for calling this to mind are by no means uncommon. It frequently happens, that when mothers, who have been long accustomed to be the chief object of a daughter's attentions, find, upon marriage, that daughter's affections transferred to her husband, they unconsciously imagine that their child has ceased to love them, and has begun to slight them. This feeling often leads to remonstrance, and an endeavour to prevent the husband being the exclusive possessor of that attention which the mother used aforetime to share, and many a domestic coolness has been thereby engendered. But whatever the motive may be, and whoever the person is, be they parent, or other relation, who attempts, by any means whatever, direct or indirect, to produce dis

union, or any thing but the strongest and most indissoluble oneness of affection and interest between man and wife, is to be accounted by both as their bitterest foe, and cast from them as an accursed serpent in their path. In like manner is to be treated any one who would sow discord between parent and child, particularly between widows and their children.

The dissolution of all the bonds of society is more apparent in the case of servants and masters than in any other situation. The universal system pursued by tradesmen, even by some who make great professions of religion, of paying servants a per centage upon the amount of their masters' bills, is a direct premium upon waste and dishonesty in every department which is entrusted to their care. Instead of looking upon themselves as parts of one family, which has but one interest, they enter their master's service for the purpose of indirect plunder, by means of which they intend to procure a provision against future contingencies for themselves. The heads of the family are kept in intentional

« ÎnapoiContinuă »