Christianity and the Gospel? A short time shall suffice me but for a short time, or, if not in act, yet in thought, let me know what it is to be my own master, to be trusted, to be free! Yes, it is the old story: the tempter comes to us still, as he came in Eden, with the insidious suggestion, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? Is it so, that the Creator, that the Redeemer, has hemmed you in with these restrictions of speech and action, when He knows all the while that, if you were but free from those fetters, you might be as gods, knowing good and evil? Ah! if He wished your happiness—if He desired the development of your whole being in the limitless regions of power and gladness, He would have left no one tree under the ban of this arbitrary prohibition: He would have allowed you, He would have bidden you to eat, without stint or precaution, of the tree of knowledge and of the tree of life! The son listens, O how readily! and frets thenceforth against the restraints of his home. One other reflection springs out of the former. A watchful home is obliged to use some caution as to the admission of books. It is one part of the duty-not always attended to—of a Christian parent, to watch over the literature which is in large part to form the principles, as well as to gratify the taste, of the young. There lies a serious responsibility upon the heads of each family, to maintain a sufficient familiarity with the current writings of the day, to be able to say with decision and with intelligence, This book shall not enter my doors, and this other shall be welcome. In general, there is both an ignorant exclusion, and then, on the other side, as its natural accompaniment, a no less ignorant admission. It must All parents are not readers: and all readers are not judges. be so. But the experience itself illustrates one of the restraints of the Divine Home. The narrative of man's life in Paradise seems to indicate to us a restriction even then upon his knowledge. The one tree from which he was debarred was the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Of that tree man has eaten; and by reason of it sin entered into the world, and death by sin. But yet, though it be too late to keep from any man the general knowledge of evil, it is not too late to limit and fence for each man the familiarity with what Holy : Scripture calls the depths of Satan. Such knowledge is not necessary for us: conscience will warn us, without minute foresight, when danger is threatening the knowledge of the mystery of evil is not needful, and it is in itself debasing and defiling. Let the son of God's House keep not only the conscience, but (so far as it may be) the understanding pure. If fallen nature frets under the restraint, let the ambition of grace answer it. If I through mercy am to be (as God promises) a partaker of the Divine nature, I must flee away, in its every form, from the corruption that is in the world through lust! It is of the first risings of discontent within against the restraints of God's Home that we speak now. We are not to tell now of the flight nor of the exile. We are only to seek to awaken, through grace, the wholesome dread of murmuring, even in thought, against the safeguards with which God has surrounded us. Let us say to ourselves, when prayer is irksome to us, when the Bible refuses to open-when some sinful thought seems pleasant, when the companionship of an unprincipled friend looks at once joyous and harmless-when some difficult duty has to be done, or some strong in clination to be striven with unto the death-let us say to ourselves then, This is the mark of my being in God's Home: I have to do this, I have to bear this, against my natural wish, just because I have the joy and the glory of being one of Christ's redeemed, one of God's sons: this little struggle, this severe conflict, is a sign that I am on the way to glory. I will not fret against the restraints of my home, but rather bless God for everything which He makes a sign and proof of my sonship; praying Him not to suffer me to depart from His house, but to dwell there all my brief lifetime, setting forth His praise, and receiving more and more upon my soul the likeness and the impress of His glory! One thing have I desired of the Lord; that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in His temple. So, when my father and my mother forsake me, the Lord will take me up. So, when the earthly house of this tabernacle is dissolved, I shall have a building of God-an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. II. THE FUGITIVE SEEKING FREEDOM IN A FAR COUNTRY. "But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord."-JONAH i. 3. HUS the Son fretting against the Restraints of his Home becomes, in the second place, the Fugitive seeking Freedom in a far Country. How often, during the six millenniums of earth's history, has this experience been verified, over and over again, in human hearts and in human homes! The son has said to his father, Give me my portion; and then has taken his journey to enjoy that inheritance in freedom. Or the son has not even said this, or said anything; but has just made his escape from employments which were monotonous, and from influences which were irksome. Many a home has been desolated-many a parent's age has been brought down with sorrow to the grave-by reason of such undutifulness and such wilfulness. Some slight |