THE MYSTERIOUS PROVISION. 11 THE MYSTERIOUS PROVISION. In the month of January, 1882, I called on a Christian family -poor in this world but "rich in faith "-with whom I had had some previous acquaintance. The husband and father had gone to meeting, taking the three eldest children with him. As the wife and mother rocked her youngest child to sleep, attentive to its every want, the conversation turned from an earthly parent's care, to the Heavenly Father's love and care over His children. The tears and smiles which chased each other across her face, as she related to me the following story, had an eloquence of their own which mere words fail to convey; convincing the listener that though "the young lions do lack, and suffer hunger," they that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing." 66 "My husband," said she, "has been poorly all the winter, working about three days in a week; and my two eldest girls had to leave school and go to work in the factory. About the first of December my husband was taken ill, and was unable to leave the house; and the next week the two girls caught severe colds, and had to leave the mill. We had no means of support except what my husband and children earned, and during their illness my faith was often tried. "The day before Christmas, my husband and children were better; we ate our dinner, but had nothing left for supper. None of our neighbours knew anything of our circumstances, and we had no desire to tell them, but took it to our Heavenly Father in prayer; feeling sure that He who feeds the ravens and watches the sparrows would not let our little ones suffer from hunger, or beg for bread. My husband went out that afternoon-weak though he was to look for work. Night was coming on, and he had not returned; the younger children were growing anxious about their supper, and I did not know what to do. I thought of going myself and explaining matters to the grocer, thinking perhaps if he knew our need he would trust us; but that would look like begging. I looked over my own clothes and those of the children, but there was nothing worth selling which I could spare except a towel. I sent my little girl out to sell it, and she soon returned, bringing me a few halfpence, with which I bought some potatoes, and was preparing them for supper when my husband came in. A glance at his face told me that he had been unsuccessful, and had come home with the prospect of going to bed supperless. "I showed him the potatoes, and proceeded to the basement 12 THE MYSTERIOUS PROVISION. to kindle a fire and cook them. The back door opened into the basement, and was seldom locked; imagine my surprise to find at the foot of the stairs a pile of three bushels of potatoes. Near by was a bag of flour, several loaves of bread, a large roast of beef, and plenty of fresh vegetables. On the stairs there were some cans of fruit and other delicacies for the sick; while out in the back yard there was a large load of wood and coal dumped, both of which we greatly needed. "I stood looking around me, afraid to speak, lest I should wake up and find that I had been dreaming; but thinking that perhaps my husband had met with some stroke of fortune that afternoon, and had sent all these good things home before he came to surprise us, I called him. He, however, knew nothing about it, and suggested that they must have been intended for some one else, and were put into our cellar by mistake. Together we looked over the different parcels, 'with fear and trembling' lest they should vanish at our touch, or lest we should find something to indicate that they were not intended for us; but we found nothing, except our own name, street, and number. "Our hearts were too full for words. We received them as a fresh token of our Heavenly Father's love and care over us, His children, and as a direct answer to our prayers. We had plenty of food and fuel to last us until my husband and children recovered and had gone to work; but we have never been able to find out what instrument the Lord was pleased to use to supply our wants, or who put the things into our cellar without our knowledge or consent." "Trust in the Lord, and do good, and verily thou shalt be fed." YOUR harps, ye trembling saints, Blest is the man, O God, Who stays himself on Thee! THE LIFE AND THE LIPS, EVERY Christian is bound to be a preacher of the gospel. But remember that there are a thousand ways of preaching Christ's gospel without choosing a text, or addressing a congregation. Wilberforce preached God's truth on the floors of legislative halls. Hannah More preached Christ in a drawing-room; Florence Nightingale in a hospital; and Sarah Martin in the prison cells of Norwich. Halyburton, when laid aside by illness, made a sick-bed his pulpit. "It is the best one I was ever in," said he. "I am laid here for the very end that I may commend my Lord and Saviour." Sailors have been eloquent preachers in the forecastle, soldiers in the tent, slaves on the plantation. A Christ-loving heart is the true ordination, after all. It is higher than the imposition of any human hands. "As ye go, preach;" "Let him that heareth say come.' These are heavenly commands that are laid upon every one who has felt the love of Jesus in his soul. Knowing the gospel fixes at once an obligation to make it known to others. If I have found the well of salvation, I am bound to call out, "Oh, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters!" God has a great variety of pulpits for Christians to preach from. My own stands in yonder church. Yours may be a Sabbath-school teacher's seat; or it may be a parent's arm-chair; or it may be a work-bench, or a desk in a counting-house. You may preach by a tract, or a Bible, or a loaf of bread laid on a poor widow's table, or by an earnest talk in a mission-school, or by a faithful private conversation with the impenitent. Any way that will give you a hold on a sinner's heart and draw him to the Saviour. Any way, so that he "who heareth says come." But there are other methods of saying "come," besides the voice and the printed page. Holy living is a mighty magnet to draw men to God. Godly example is a powerful attracter toward heaven. Even the most eloquent pastor will find that his people look at him during the week to find out what he means on the Sabbath. Preaching piety on one day of the week does not counteract the practising of selfishness, or censoriousness, or cowardice, or compromise with wrong, on the other six days. If we say come with the lips, it is well; if we say " come with the life, it is still better. Religion made attractive to others is the most potent instrument for the conversion of souls. But few men are eloquent with the lips; yet every Christian may rise to the eloquence of example. If you cannot utter a truth from the desk or the platform, you can live the 14 THE LIFE AND THE LIPS. truth; and that is the best preaching, after all. No infidel ever attempts to answer that. It requires no defence. It draws silently but surely. It says "come," by showing the way. The "living epistle" never needs a translation or a commentary. It is in plain English that every child can understand. A poor sick girl, for example, is wearing away her young life in a chamber of confinement. All day long and all the night, for weary weeks and months, the patient sufferer suffers on. But she bears the sorrow of her lot so meekly, she speaks of her discipline so sweetly, she exhibits such patience of hope and such quiet trust in Him whose strong arm is beneath her, she lives out so much religion in that chamber, that her worldlyminded father and her frivolous sisters are all touched by it. They feel it. Her example is a "means of grace" to that whole family; they get no better preaching from any quarter. Her deep, tranquil joys beside the well of salvation are a constant voice speaking to them, "Come, come ye to this fountain." Cecil used to say that "his first feelings of religion were made stronger by seeing that truly pious people had a true happiness that the things of this world could not give." It was always admitted in Dundee that the life of Robert M'Cheyne, even more than his eloquent discourses, impressed and moved the community around him. We might multiply illustrations of the same truth from biographies and from observation. A God-fearing youth occupies the same room with several giddy scoffers his fellow-clerks or fellow-students. Night and morning he bends the knee in prayer before them. They scoff at first, but he prays on. The daily reminder of that fearless act of devotion awakens presently in the minds of his companions the memory that they too had once been taught to pray, but now have learned to scoff. Example is an arrow of conviction; they too "remember their God, and are troubled." John Angell James, of Birmingham, says in one of his lectures, "If I have a right to consider myself a Christian, if I have attained to any usefulness in the Church of Christ, I owe it, in the way of means and instrumentality, to the sight of a companion who slept in the same room with me, bending his knees in prayer on retiring to rest. That scene roused my slumbering conscience and sent an arrow to my heart; for, though I had been religiously educated, I had neglected prayer and cast off the fear of God. My conversion to God followed, and my preparation for the work of the ministry. Nearly half a century has rolled away since then, but that little chamber and that praying youth are still present to my imagination, and will never be forgotten ACQUAINTED WITH THE AUTHOR. 15 even amidst the splendour of heaven and through the ages of eternity." 66 The best defence of the fourth commandment is found in the higher lives and loftier characters of those who remember God's day to keep it holy. The clear head and the prosperous purse of the total abstainer from the bottle is the best temperance lecture. Actions speak louder than words. If you wish to move others, move on yourself. Cæsar never said to his troops, "Go!" he took the lead, and cried out, "Come!" The witty and gay Lord Peterborough, after lodging with Archbishop Fenelon, said to him at parting, "If I stay here any longer I shall become a Christian in spite of myself." Paul acknowledged the power of example when he said, "Be ye followers of me." Even the lips of the Divine Saviour have not such persuasions as His marvellous life. Holy living is what this poor world is dying for to-day. A radiant and holy life is instinct with the very power of God. If the vital union of believers with their Divine Head means anything, it means that Christ pours Himself into the world through the lips and the lives of His earthly representatives of Christ-like men and women. "It is not I that live," said the hero-apostle, "but Christ that liveth in me." But, reader, in order that you may be able to speak of Christ to others, you must first know Him yourself. Do you know Him? To know Him is "life eternal.” ACQUAINTED WITH THE AUTHOR. THE sin and curse of the heathen world was, they "knew not God." This was their calamity, and this their condemnation. "The world by wisdom knew not God." The whole history of the human race has shown that man of himself has been unable to find out God. He can only know God as God reveals Himself to him; and if he rejects this revelation, he must remain in darkness, and be without God and without hope in the world. Those heathen nations who were acquainted with art, science, mathematics, architecture, painting, poetry, and sculpture, were in utter ignorance concerning God, and would worship cats, and dogs, and snakes, and would plunge into the deepest and most degrading vices under the pretence of worshipping their lascivious gods, represented by images of gold, and silver, and brass, and iron, and clay. This ignorance of God, which is so ruinous, has come to be |