The path of peace: or, A practical guide to duty and happiness

Preface

Can that person be a christian, who is so unamiable in character, that his companionship is undesirable? Is devotional feeling acceptable to God, when unaccompanied by the graces of a generous and a lovely spirit? And yet how many christians are there, who are any thing but agreeable companions or desirable friends!

"Mother," said a little boy, "I do not wish to go to Heaven."

"And why not my son?"

"Why Grandfather will be there, will he not?"

"Yes, my son, I hope he will."

"Well, as soon as he sees us, he will come scolding along, and say, 'Whew, whew, whew, what are these boys here for.' I am sure I do not wish to go to Heaven, if Grandfather is to be there."

VI PREFACE.

Who has not been conscious of similar feelings? How many professing christians are there, with whom one could not live happily, even in Heaven, unless their characters should be greatly changed.

It is of the utmost importance, — it is absolutely essential to christian character, that we should cultivate those devotional feelings, inculcated in the iuvaluable writings of Baxter, Taylor and Doddridge, but it is no less essential that that we should accustom ourselves to whatsoever things are true, honest and just, pure, lovely and of good report. Moral character and devotional feelings have been, theoretically and practically too much disjoined. It is our object in this book to inculcate their holy and indissoluble alliance, and thus to shew how we should live to be happy ourselves, to promote the happiness of others, and to prepare for the joys of Heaven.

Roxbury, Sept 1. 1836.

CHAPTER I. Merriment is not Happiness

A Sabbath scene in Baltimore. Scene in Pittsburgh. The dying child. The fashionable lady. Why affliction is sent. The pious lady. The contrast. Sabbath amusements. Family devotion. The design of the book, page 13

CHAPTER II. Moral Culture

Communion with God essential to happiness. The efficacy of faith. The fretful Christian. Secret prayer. A grateful spirit eEsential to happiness, The guilt of ingratitude. Cheerfulness to be cultivated. A gloomy wife and mother. Her sad influence upon her husband and son. The whist party. The moral power of cheerfulness. An affectionate spirit essential to happiness. The heartless family. The influence of affectionate feelings in shielding from temptation. Avoid selfishness. The winter night's ride. Decision of character. Stubbornness. The drowning man, 42

CHAPTER III. The Family

Dome stic happiness. Parental responsibilities. Family prayer. Duty to domestics. Catholic servants. The diffident man.

V1H CONTENTS.

.Religious instruction. The neglected family. Sons of the wealthy. Religious toleration. The divided family. The intolerant father. To promote temporal happiness a duty. Anecdote of Newton. Interest in children's studies. The votary of pleasure. Chesterfield, 79

CHAPTER IV. The Church

Packet ships. The voyage. Ecclesiastical organizations. The duty of making a profession of religion. The church member's duty. Attending church meetings. The duty of the pious wife, whose husband is not a Christian. Friendly intercourse. Contention in churches. Different stations in life. Importance of harmony, Ill

CHAPTER V. Your Neighbor

Anecdote. Why Christians are often hated. Duties to our fellows. 1. Be honest. Examples of common dishonesty. The lady shopping. The embarrassed merchant. The oppressive lawyer. Anecdote by Rowhnd Hill. 2. Be generous. The miserly clergyman. Why God asks for money. 3. Be open-hearted. The manocuverer. The prudent man. 4. Be polite. The uncivil clergyman. Incivility is sin. The drover. Rules of politeness drawn from the Bible. The "plain spoken" man. 5. Be a good neighbor. Anecdotes. The two neighbors* The Dutch gentleman. 6. Take an interest in the spiritual welfare of your neighbors. What is Eternity. The way to influence, 150

Chapter I. Merriment Is Not Happiness

Not many months since I passed a sabbath in Baltimore. As I came from church, in the afternoon, I saw half a dozen young men sitting around their wine, at the table they had not left since dinner. Fumes of tobacco filled the room. Their faces were flushed with wine and mirth. With the sparkling glass in one hand, and the lighted cigar in the other, their voices were just bursting forth in the riotous song,

Old king Cole was a jolly old soul,

And a jolly old soul, was he, was he;

He called for his pipe, and he called for his bowl,

And he called for his fiddlers, three.

I stood, for a moment, upon the stairs, and looked in upon this scene of revelry — upon this band of precocious yet apparently confirmed inebriates. And this, thought I, is a practical exhibition of infidelity. These are the joys which irreligion offers its votaries. In this school infidelity would train up our young men, and with these characters she would fill our land.

A short time after this, I was in Pittsburg. As I sat at my chamber window enjoying the mild, balmy air of one of the most lovely sabbath mornings in June, no sound disturbed the sacred silence, but the notes of a christian hymn, coming faintly, yet sweetly from an adjoining room. I listened and heard several youthful voices uniting with the rich voice, of apparently the husband and father, in the following words.

No more fatigue no more distress, Nor sin, nor death, shall reach the place. No groans shall mingle with the songs, Which warble from immortal tongues.

And this, thought I, is a practical exhibition of Christianity. These are the joys, the ennobling, purifying, joys, which religion confers. These are the moral influences with which it would surround every individual of the human race. It would seem that the infidel, himself, could not hesitate to choose under which he would have a son or a daughter educated. They, whose hearts are attuned to the melody of such hymns, and who are nurtured under the influence of such a home, have entered the paths of peace.

Many who will peruse these pages have, perhaps, long been seeking happiness in vain. Disappointment has thus far accompanied your search. You are dissatisfied with the present and have no joyful anticipations to light up the future. We would guide you in a better way. We would lead you to fountains of pure and unfailing joy. God has shewn us where those fountains are, and if we follow His directions we shall not seek them inwain.

The promotion of happiness, is the great object which God has in view in all His operations. For this He made men free; for this He gave His law. Every sorrow which is sent to the human heart, is sent in love, to promote real and permanent enjoyment. He never willingly afflicts. When the heart is crushed with the heaviest weight of affliction, the voice of God declares, that this affliction is the means, which He is using, to banish sorrow forever, and to fill the heart with joy. Yes! God loves happiness, and is now, in every part of the universe, adopting those plans which to Him seem most effectual for the fulfilment of His benevolence.

Do you question this assertion? Does your mind revert to some chamber of pain and death where God has sent the destroying angel to blight every earthly joy, and to accumulate anguish, which shall for years oppress the heart, by night and by day? Let us then enter this chamber, and study the meaning of this mystery. How pale the cheek and dim the eye of this little sufferer. Her feeble moan is so affectingly pensive, that tears gush from the eyes of every beholder. She is a mother's only daughter; the choicest treasure of all God's gifts. But the hand of death is upon her. Medical skill has been in vain. Prayers and tears have been unavailing. The last hour has come. The child is dying. Extended on her little bed, with folded hands and fixed eyes she is heavily drawing her last breath, as her spirit struggles to be free. The mother, half delirious with days and nights of sleeplessness and toil, is unfortified for the heart rending scene. She is overwhelmed with agony, — unutterable agony. With frantic step she hurries to the bed, and covers the cheek of her dying child with burning kisses. She sinks into a chair, by the bed side, apparently exhausted with emotion, when suddenly anguish gives her new strength, and wringing her hands, she hurries to and fro through the apartment, exclaiming, "my child is dying; my child is dying; oh! she must not die; God have mercy, have mercy, on her poor mother." Does God stay his hand? No! Look at the little sufferer. Her convulsions become more frequent and more severe. She tries to say "dear mother." But she only articulates enough to let us know what she would say, and to plunge a new arrow of agony into the mother's heart. Even the groans of the dying child are lost in the loud lamentations of the distracted parent. Is this a picture of the imagination? no! They, who are in the habit of visiting chambers of sickness, know that we faintly paint, from reality. Are such scenes unfrequent? No! They are occurring every hour of every day.

God has but to say the word and the disease is removed, and the child rises from her bed in health and beauty. It requires not the least exertion on the part of God to sweep away all this sorrow, and to fill the dwelling with the most rapturous joy. And why does not God do it? Because he loves to see his children happy. He has perhaps tried all other means to wean this mother's heart from sin, that she might be really and permanently happy in Heaven. This is His last resort, to make her happy. He lays his hand upon her darling child, and He thus

speaks to her in a voice more loud and more

*2 impressive than He could in any other way. And does He thus plead in vain? If He does, it is because she refuses to yield to the efforts, which God makes, to save her from sorrow, and to make her the child of uninterrupted and unending joy. This is the object God has in view. It is one of the most signal evidences of the efforts God makes to save from sorrow. In a few days call in to that dwelling again, and perhaps you will see the mother calm and peaceful. She speaks of God and Heaven, in a manner which shows you at once that she has entered a new world of joy. She smiles, in the midst of her tears, as she speaks of that happy world to which she trusts her child has gone, and already, in gratitude, she blesses God that she has been afflicted. And in succeeding years, as she draws nearer her heavenly home, she thanks God with more fervor, that He, by the death of her child, led her to think of the salvation of her soul. And when she is taking her departure from the world, she says that the choicest blessing she had on earth was the voice which came to her heart through her dying child. God assures us that He never willingly afflicts. He has filled Heaven with joy, and, would we yield to His directions and His pleadings, He would imbue every heart with the spirit of Heaven and fill earth with happiness.

God has told us what feelings we must cherish, and what habits we must cultivate, if we would be happy. And He has urged us by the most powerful of all possible considerations to pursue the path He has thus marked out. He assures us that then we shall please Him, and exhibit to the universe the purity of His benevolence and the perfection of His plans; that thus we shall promote the happiness of all God's creatures, and saving ourselves from ceaseless remorse, shall be elevated to dwell in His courts, and to share in dignity and joy, such as earthly eye has never seen, or earthly heart conceived.

It will be my object in this little treatise, to guide the reader to these habits of feeling and of life. The Bible is the teacher whose directions I shall follow. In explaining and illustrating the principles of its instructions, I feel confident that I am directing my readers to sure and unfailing enjoyment. Your toil here will most certainly be accompanied with success. Here you cannot seek in vain. Even if, for a season, your efforts appear to be unavailing, the most triumphant success will be your final accomplishment. Why do so many pass their lives in the fruitless pursuit of pleasure, and find in a dying hour that the past has been but a dream of vanity, and that the most fearful uncertainty clouds the future with gloom. It is because, disobeying the directions of God, they have sought enjoyment in regions where God assures them that only disappointment and sorrow can be found. They have forsaken the plain path which God marked out for them, and entering the wilderness of forbidden allurements, have wandered and perished amid its glooms.

Life is strewed with the wrecks of temporal and eternal happiness. Wherever the eye ranges, or thought penetrates, we find the memorials of disappointment and spiritual ruin. Look at this young lady. She seems formed by God, to be the recipient and the distributer of the most pure and unalloyed enjoyment. Her Heavenly Father has conferred upon her the endowments of a good mind and an affectionate heart. He has surrounded her with every essential to earthly comfort, and placing the Bible in her hands to guide her from the rocks and quick-sands, which endanger her present and future happiness, bids her obey its directions and be blest forever. What does she do? Why, with an infatuation which is almost inconceivable, she places the Bible upon her shelf

MERRIMENT TS NOT HAPPINESS. 21

unexamined, and plunges headlong into the midst of those very dangers against which it so affectionately warns her. Day after day, her heart is oppressed with the ravages of disappointment and chagrin; and yet her impetuous career of thoughtlessness is unchecked. Watch her movements as she glitters in the illumined halls of gaiety. Her heart throbs in sympathy with "music's voluptuous swell." She is half intoxicated with the excitement of the scene. In graceful measures she is gliding through the giddy mazes of the dance, and for a moment finds, perhaps, the counterfeit semblance of joy. And yet the semblance is faint indeed. Restlessness and vague anxiety rebuke her when she says, "I have now found happiness." And when, long after the hour of midnight, she returns exhausted to her home, and her silent chamber, and commits her throbbing head to the pillow, the conflicting emotions of her bosom are so turbulent and stormy, that she is a stranger, not merely to happiness, but even to serenity of mind and to the composure of ordinary peace. She feels dissatisfied with herself, she hardly knows why. In feverish dreams the morning wears away. And when late she rises, languid and dejected, to toil painfully through the hours of the day, she is constrained to admit that the pleasure of the moment was most dearly bought. She is sadly disappointed in her pursuit, and yet, as she knows not where else to look for joy, she continues in a kind of submissive desperation, to be borne onward by the crowd with which she mingles. Now why is she not happy? Simply because she is seeking happiness in the wrong place — in a place where happiness never has been, and never can be found. If she would attend to the directions which God has given her, she would know at once that it would be perfect folly to seek true enjoyment in such scenes. But she does not heed these directions. If, at times, she allows her eye to glance over them, it is with careless thought, or with a guilty feeling, that few as her enjoyments are, God would make them still less.

God never prohibits any tiling which really and permanently promotes our happiness. When, in His word, He cautions us against any worldly allurement, it is because it is an allurement to sorrow, and not to joy. When He enjoins upon us any duty, or any act of self-denial, it is because obedience to that injunction will promote the reign of peace and joy in the heart. But the fashionable lady, in the whirl of gaiety and exciting show, does not believe this; she sees no beauty in those peaceful walks to which her Father's hand would guide her. The shades, which God assures her will be soothing and refreshing, to her appear dark and gloomy. She has not confidence in God's declarations, and breaks away from His hand, to pursue the false glitter against which He warns her. At last she wakes from this exciting dream, but she awakes not to life, but to death. In the chamber of silence and pain she reviews her worthless life, and weeps in bitterness of spirit to find that she has lived in vain, and is going down to an unhonored grave. In the retrospect of her privileges and opportunities for doing good, she can hardly find an event upon which her mind reposes with pleasure. The past is all one dead level of uselessness, she has lived for herself alone, and yet she has done herself no good. She has passed her life in the pursuit of pleasure, and is now, at its close, farther than ever from the attainment of her object. Death is coming to claim her armed with terrors. The grave is dark and dreadful. For judgment she is all unprepared; the Savior is a stranger to her; the spirit has ever been grieved away, and all the talents which were entrusted to her keeping, have been uncultivated. She has nothing to look forward to, but guilt and shame. She utters loudly in the ears of weeping friends, the language of lamentation for her folly, and dies, leaving her sad history a warning to others, that God knows, better than we, what will promote the happiness of the creatures He has made.

But the question again arises, why does God prohibit the pursuit of pleasure, in those scenes, which, to say the least, appear alluring to the youthful heart? The prohibition seems not to be the arbitrary decision of God, but has its foundation in the very nature of man. God has not placed us in the midst of scenes capable of affording us real enjoyment, and then commanded us to abstain from these enjoyments. He has created us but little lower than the angels, with minds immortal, and capable of infinite expansion, and burning with desires for angelic joys. In trivial pursuits, we can find nothing which affords satisfaction to minds created with such noble endowments. The well fed kitten finds its congenial element of joy, when frisking by the fireside. These joys are adapted to its nature. But this young lady, who seeks enjoyment in the color of a ribbon, or in the frivolities of fashion, is out of her element. She is an immortal being, and has stooped to things too trivial for an immortal mind; and until God degrades her mind, and gives her a lower place in the scale of being, she can not satisfy the aspirations of her soul with such emptiness and vanity. She wonders why she is not happy. She has forgotten her rank in the scale of being! She has forgotten who is her Father! She has forgotten that she is the heiress of all heaven's treasure! She brings her immortal mind, with its vast capacities, with its unlimited powers, to seek enjoyment in those frivolities, which are only adapted to the nature of the playful kitten, or the sportive lamb! And yet she wonders why she is not happy!

It is true that the frown of God is upon us, when we thus forget our nature and our destiny. But it is not His frown alone which darkens our sky. The empty void of the heart, so universal, as to have become a proverb, with all nations, and at every age, can only be filled by the pursuit of objects adapted to the elevation of our nature. Even if God did not regard with displeasure the waste and the perversion of our faculties, it necessarily results from the constitution of man, created in the image of God, and allied in dignity with angelic spirits, that he can not be satisfied with any pleasures, but those which are pure and elevated. He mustsoar on angel wings, and hold intercourse with 3 the Eternal, and become familiar with joys kindred to those which are found in heaven, before this empty void can be filled. To sum up all in one comprehensive sentence, he can never be satisfied, till he awakes in Christ's likeness. When this desire animates him; when he adopts the sentiment,

<*Be Thou my pattern, make me bear More of thy gracious image here — "

then he begins to live worthy of himself. Then he has entered the paths of peace into which God would guide him. He then begins to find the long sought treasure. The turbulence of passion is quelled. The "waves of trouble, cease to roll, across his peaceful breast." "Yes!" said once the dying christian, "I cannot now be disappointed. What is God's will, is my will, I have no will of my own. I am already in heaven, its glories and its joys fill my soul."

When we take the Bible for our guide, and the Savior for our pattern, we have entered the path which surely leads to certain and unending joy. Turn from the lady of fashion and pleasure, to the christian female whose days are cheered by faith and hope. Her mind familiar with eternal things, soars in its native element, and is ready at any time to wing its flight to nobler worlds. She awakes in the morning, not exhausted with the revelry of a dissipated night, but refreshed with quiet sleep, and prepared for the faithful discharge of the duties of life. Her morning prayer tranquilizes her spirit, to meet the trials of the day. At the bed of sickness she loves to sit, ready to administer support and sympathy. By her cheerfulness and affection, and ready discharge of every act of kindness, she makes home happy, and draws to herself the hearts of all who encircle the family fireside. The day is past in usefulness. She shrinks not from self denial, that she may do the will of her Father. And when the evening has passed, and her grateful heart offers its evening homage of praise, she retires to rest at peace with herself and with all the world. How sweet are her slumbers! How serene are her thoughts! And thus her days glide away. She has many sorrows, but every trial brings with it a consolation. When old age comes and she waits for her departure, eternity is spread before her in its most brilliant hues. Her meditations are delightful; her anticipations of the future most joyful. Her pleasures are immortal pleasures. They survive the hour of death, and will bear transporting beyond the grave. She has given free scope to the nobleness of her nature, and here on earth has acquired a relish for those joys, which allure her soul in brighter worlds.

Look at two children commencing life together. In the sports of childhood they are united, and each advancing year increases their intimacy and strengthens their friendship. At an early age one of them becomes pious, and consecrates her heart and her life to the service of her Maker. The other continues in light hearted indifference to all the realities of a future world, and to all the real responsibilities of life. Here of course their paths begin to diverge, and, though they both make efforts to continue their intimacy, and to perpetuate their friendship, every day increases the dissimilarity of their feelings, and of their enjoyments. They are both in circumstances of comparative wealth, and the prospects which are opening before them in life, are more than ordinarily animating.

The pious girl becomes the wife of a foreign missionary. See her standing upon the deck of the ship, as they unfurl the sails to the wind. Her heart is bleeding as she bids adieu to kindred and friends. A superficial world regards her with pity, but it is because they know not the motives which actuate her, and the consolations which fill her heart. As the breeze propels the ship from the shore, and the bine haze of her country fades away in the distance, consolations, of noble nature and of heavenly origin, come, as an angel from heaven, and strengthen her. And as, in the solitude of the ocean, she gazes upon the stars hung out in the midnight sky, and thinks with rapture of the mansion prepared for her there, oh think you, that she is a stranger to enjoyment? Think you she would exchange that rich happiness, which melts her heart, and causes the tears to gush into her eyes, for any enjoyment the fashionable belle has ever found, in illumined halls, and pretty ribbons, and gaudy dress? Angels gaze with interest upon the moral sublimity of the work in which she has engaged, and may almost covet the toils and sacrifices she is permitted to endure. She is engaged in her Father's work, and receives those satisfying rewards her Father knows, so well, how to confer.

Look at her again, she has passed weeks and months upon the stormy ocean, and is just gazing upon the distant outline of the dark islands, where she is to pass her life and find her grave. Oh who can tell the emotions which thrill through her heart, as she leans upon her *3 husband's arm and gazes upon t he opening won ders of her new and final home. As the ship nears the shore, the dim mountains rise to view. The luxuriant forest waves deep and dark over the extended hills and vallies. Wild natives shout along the shore, or, with hasty paddle, propel the canoe over the waves. As with uncouth gesticulation and unintelligible jargon, they throng around the ship, and climb its sides, and her heart almost faints within her at the sight of the degraded creatures with whom she is to spend her days, think you that hope — heavenly hope — does not animate her, as in the visions of the future she sees them elevated, through her instrumentality, from sin to holiness, and presented, rejoicing in pardon, at the throne of heaven? Ask her if she is willing to turn from those shores, and again seek her highly favored American home. She will tell you no! And in her humble dwelling, surrounded by uninstructed heathen, she will perhaps experience hours of as unalloyed enjoyment, as is to be found on earth. She is strengthened by faith, and animated by hope. The consciousness that she is in the service of God, gives her a degree of substantial happiness, such as the votary of worldly pleasure never knew. Could you hear the silent prayer her heart is offering, you would perceive it to be the prayer of praise. She blesses God that she is permitted to enter such a field of labor, and to engage in so glorious an enterprise.

Look at her again. She is borne down with infirmities and cares. A humble hut is her home, and disease and hardship have made sad ravages upon her feeble frame. Her days of toil are nearly numbered, and she expects soon to find the repose of the grave. But mark her demeanor! How calm and serene and subdued. Gaze upon that countenance! It is already lighted up as with the purity of heaven. Listen to her conversation! It comes from an untroubled and a rejoicing heart. Ask her if she is happy? Every feature of her countenance will say yes. Ask her if she looks back with regret upon the choice she made in early life? And in the fulness of overflowing gratitude, she will tell you, that she blesses God that she was led thus to choose. She has entered the ways of pleasantness; she has found the paths of peace. And oh how triumphant is the hour of her departure from the world. The exulting language of the dying Christian is on her lips.

"Lend, lend your wings, I mount, I fly! Oh grave where is thy victor}'? Oh death where is thy sting?

But trace out the history of her early friend. She moves in the gay circles of fashionable life. Her mind is enfeebled in its powers by the emptiness of her pursuits. A few short years wear out the novelty of all ordinary scenes of pleasure. As she has no other resource she is doomed to ever increasing satiety. Her hours of depression and days of listlessness are uncheered by bright prospects in the future. She tries to appear happy, and when thoughtless friends are around her, she buries deep in her bosom the disappointments which are weighing upon her spirits. Handsome furniture, and expensive dress, and loud laughing companions, cannot save from the heart ache. Conscience often reproaches her, for her neglect of God and useless life. She resolves and re-resolves, yet lives the same. Many, who see her surrounded with all earthly comforts, and luxuries, think she must be happy. But did they know the truth, they would pity her as the victim of disquietude and almost of remorse. But at last her days are also terminated. In a chamber of splendor, and on a bed of down, she lies down to die. In the solitude of the darkened apartment, her mind reverts to the past scenes of life, and a faithful conscience, deprives her of peace. The fever in her heart is more painful than that which is coursing through her veins. The anguish of her spirit compels her to forget her parched lips and throbbing brow. There is no medicine, but the balm in Gilead, which can cure one who is sick at heart. Oh go into that chamber; sit down by that dying bed; gaze upon the anxious countenance of the sufferer who is there; listen to her language of self condemnation, as she mourns over her wasted life; hear her speak of the insulted Savior, the grieved spirit, the neglected Father! The glooms of the eternal world are gathering around her; and, as she goes down into the dark valley, not one ray of joy cheers the fainting spirit. Poor lost sinner! angels may weep over your ruin! And is this the path into which thousands are rushing, vainly thinking it the path of peace? What fearful delusion! It is the broad road to ruin! The path to woe, irremediable and eternal.