The bud, blossom and fruit

Front matter

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. _

I. Early Piety Possible, n

Early Piety not from Birth, m.

Early Piety not Ritual,

IV.

Early Piety not from Education, v.

Early Piety and Parental Training

Connected, ....

VI.

Early Piety Explained, .

vn.

The Great Question Answered, .

64:

vni.

Desire for the Salvation of Others, .

IX.

The Child's Obedience,

X.

Sensitiveness to Sin and Desire to be

Holy,

XI.

Self-Examination, ....

XII.

Humility,

XIII.

Communion Season, ....

XIV.

Sympathy with the Church,

XY.

Natural things suggesting Spiritual,

C N T E N T S .

XVI. Responsibility, .... 148

XVII. Sincerity, 15*3

XV11L Conscious Weakness, . . . 164

XIX. Confidence in God, . . . 170

XX. Joy, 178

XXI. Regular Devotion, . . . 155

XXII. The Sabbath— The Bible, . . 195

XXQI. Gratitude, 206

XXIV. Benevolence, 219

XXV. Growth in Grace. ... 226

XXVI. Triumph in Death. . . . 238

XXVII. Funeral, 218

CHAPTER I Earlg ^trtg passible

M When piety in early minds,

Like tender buds begins to shoot ; He guards the plants from threatening winds, And ripens blossoms into fruit." — Stennet.

Once at least, in the life of Christ, we find the children in the temple. They do not seem to be there for play. It would not be strange, when their fathers made the temple a market-place, if the children should choose it as the spot for their sports. But they appear to be worshiping. They have caught the key-note of the gospel, and are sending up

" hosannas to the Son of David." The sound is grateful to Christ. He deepens and prolongs it by the prophetic saying, " Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise." He does not question that children may as rightly praise him, as those in manhood strength. Strange would it have been, had he questioned it, after saying, " Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me : for of such is the kingdom of heaven."

There were some who were displeased at this praise of Christ. The scribes and the chief priests were quite troubled and vexed at it. Probably they thought these children so small and ignorant, that they could not give a religious teacher suitable praise. They had no idea of any religion, but such as was manifested in their own way. Perhaps some of the disciples had the same idea, though it is not told us. At all events, I am sure that the disciples of the present day have entered into this Pharisaic sentiment. I have seen it and felt it, to my heart's core. They never rise to the wonderfully wide basis which the apostle laid, when saying, "There are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all." It is no surprise to them, when the grace of God touches those who have added to their natural corruption, the guilt and the habit of years of transgression. But it amazes them to hear of " little children " being really and truly " heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ." It has been a custom with me, to have an inquiry meeting at the going down of the sun on Sabbath evening. Frequently, many that come, are children. It has sometimes been said outside, " there is not much real religious interest, because those who go are mostly children." And what is the reason the interest is not more real and hearty ? The children have come in from among those who speak doubtfully of their being proper subjects for the service of God ! Their feelings are chilled, instead of being fanned into a flame! There is no waiting father or mother to say to them, as they return, " Is the work done, is my child a follower of Christ?" The most whom they meet, think their feelings little, and transient. It would be better if they had the eye and the heart of Christ, to see and welcome the faintest notes of praise. Said an aunt to a little girl, " Why do you wish to go down to your pastor's ? " "I am a sinner," she said, " and wish to know the way to heaven." Could a lady of twenty-five answer more appropriately ?

Some think a millennial day to be near. It will not dawn, till there are more vivid ideas of the possibility and probability of a child's piety. These Sabbath school services, and saying of prayers, and questions and answers that concern eternity, are not to be looked at as ends. They are means that, through the Holy Spirit, may reach a great end. This end is not the keeping the seed covered in the mind, so that the devil shall not steal it away. The warming the seed into speedy life, is what is to be hopefully looked for. This believing look would give life to all the labors for children. And there are grounds for our thus believing. The conversion of children, is not a theory merely. It has passed into the class of facts, which settle questions before in dispute. Many a pastor can bear testimony, that if he has ever seen true religion among his people, it has been in the children. Many a one might say. he could wish his church made up of children, when he has watched the simple, but sincere manner in which some have talked of Christ and his kingdom.

I have spoken of early piety, as a fact. Many of the subjects of it. are recorded in the libraries of our Sabbath schools and homes. Some have lost the force of these records, because the* children died so soon after their piety began to show itself. All their glorious views and sayings, go for naught, because they were taken away so soon : perhaps, t away for this cause, that their hosannas were too mucli for this unbelieving world. and most aptly fitted to chord with, and swell the song of heaven. Now it is true, that a great deal of this recorded piety has not shown itself real, in the struggle with the changes and chances of mortal life. It is true, that it doth not appear what we shall be in eternity, when our piety has been chiefly that of the sick chamber. But all piety is not of this interested character. There are many instances of early piety standing strong, amid the temptations of life. It has been as permanent, as it was early. TVe select a single one, from others which we know. Emily J. Goodhue, born in Marlboro', Mass., December 8, 1838: died in Manchester, Mass., October 3, 1857. In the winter of 1846, when about seven years old, she became pious. For more than ten years, her piety was displaying itself. In her case, we have " the bud, the blossom and fruit," all seen, known, and realized on earth, before they have reached a heavenly perfection.

Chapter II

11 Por they are not all Israel, which are of Israel." — Rom. 9 : 6.

" Born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh," says the first chapter of the gospel of John. It was a new idea to many. They thought piety ran in the line of ancient and honorable blood. If they could say they were "Abraham's seed," it was much the same as saying that they were " never in bondage to any man," or any thing. "When the apostle said he was " of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews," it was a much clearer proof of his piety to the people of his day, than the brilliant account of his conversion, in the ninth chapter of the Acts. Perhaps this idea did not leave the world, when the tribes left Judea. It may be a growth of the common, instead of the Jewish heart. Men do not expect indications of piety in the children of low, ignorant, ungodly parents. But when they come from elevated blood, blood long separated from that of those who " fear not God, or regard man," separate, perhaps, for the service and kindgom of God, in a most remarkable sense, it may sometimes be thought its heavenly tendencies will be left, at the same time with its life. The thought is vain. The propagation of purity, is not one of the laws of God in this sinful world. The highest authority has said, " Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one."

There is another form, in which this idea of " birth piety," sometimes shows itself. It is this ; that God anticipates the birth, that would naturally be in sin, and makes it one of holiness. That he has done this, may be true. The Bible speaks thus of Jeremiah : " Before thou earnest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee." Gabriel said to the father of John the Baptist, " He shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb." Now what God has done, he may do again. But it is to be remembered that these were peculiar times, and the only cases that are known of the kind, from the thousands and millions, that were born into the world, during the period of history that the Bible covers. So that I should quite as soon imagine, that people of the present day would be carried to heaven without dying, because Enoch and Elijah were, as to think that they would be sanctified from birth, because this was the case with Jeremiah, and John the Baptist. This is one of the things that God would not be likely to repeat much, when he means to keep us fixed so humbly and constantly upon the truth, which is woven into the very heart of the Bible, that man is corrupt from his birth. Parents that talk so much of their children " sanctified from birth," are traveling out of the record, and may find at last that they are flattering their own vanity, rather than speaking out the sentiments of an intelligent and pious heart. Not far from my dwelling is the house of a venerable man, who has been for more than a half century the pillar of the Rowley church. His home has been a Bethany to the ministers of the Gospel.

Several years ago. one of thern brought a child of five years old. saving to the household that he - considered hi in sanctified from the womb.*' No sooner had the father gone out. than this wonderful took up the first thing that came to hand, and threw it at the head of one of the women who shared the cares, toils, affections, and joys of the house. Less shrewd women than she. would have reasoned that this M birth sanctification " was not to be relied on. or proclaimed, before it had been subjected to long and impartial tests. Parents had better be suspicious of the piety which seems to date from birth. Even if a piety which has been long and patiently tested, cannot be traced back to the period when there was no love to the Saviour. and no godly sorrow for sin. they would do well to disconnect it from the natural birth, of which it would be so strange a companion. The race is fallen ; the worm is at the root of the gourd. Even Seth, afterwards supposed to be pure, was begotten in Adam's u own likeness, after his image," and not after the " image of God," which his father had at his creation, and which the apostle informs us, consists in " knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness." The root has lost its spiritual strength, its heavenly vitality, and the most distant branches helplessly fall, and cease to tend upward. So that to the end of time it will prove true, that " what is born of the flesh, is flesh." The truth of the touching and humbling psalm will apply to the last child of the race :

" Lord, I am vile, conceived in sin, And born unholy and unclean ; Sprung from the man, whose guilty fall Corrupts the race, and taints us all."

We claim for Einily, no exemption from the common law of a fallen race. She was the daughter of very respectable and highly devoted Christian parents : Rev. John N. Goodhue, a native of Salem, and pastor of the Congregational church, Marlboro', and Emily Leach of Manchester. She was amiable very early. But she was born a sinner in the sight of God. There was no particular religious difference between her and other children, till she was about seven years old. Then the difference commenced, and continued and widened till the day of her death.

Chapter III

4 No bleeding bird, nor bleeding beast, Nor hyssop branch, nor sprinkling priest, Nor running brook, nor flood, nor sea, Can wash the dismal stain away." — Watts.

" And when the Pharisee saw it, he marveled that he had not first washed before dinner." There was a reason for neglecting the washing. This Pharisee already had his eye too much upon the outside of the cup and platter. The Saviour wished to turn him to the inward wickedness, too deep, too gross for an outward washing.

The fondness for the ritual, is one of the most common of human traits. The Saviour found it widely spread when he

THE BUD, BLOSSOM AND FRUIT.

came. It had grown into such a form, and height, as to become sin, and hinder greatly his work. Some think it God's kindness alone, that gave the magnificent ritual to the Jews. "We should question whether this gorgeous outward scene was merely a condescension to that Jewish weakness, which was not strong enough to climb to the spiritualities of the gospel. God wished a shadow for the great substantial things which were coming. It seemed to him the wisest, and best, to have a long dim twilight before the clear day of the gospel. But in carrying out this view, ho put the Jews to very great hazard. The trial was too severe for them. They became bound to their forms, and never could be satisfied out of them, unless in the more palpable and sensual rites of the heathen. The deep vail is on their hearts, as they read

Moses. They cannot see Christ. They will, till God brings them in with the fullness of the Gentiles, spend their time upon such material questions, as " whether upon this mountain, or at Jerusalem, they shall worship the Father."

Jesus left us but two simple rites, Baptism, and the Lord's Supper. They have proved too much for our spiritual strength, even when accompanied with all his vivid explanations. Hardly had they been given, before they began to be degraded by material hands. Rome came in, and gave them an independent efficacy. The miserable theory was relied upon, that Christ had put the cure of original and actual sin into the water, and bread and wine which the priest had blessed. The theory was too congenial to human nature not to spread to the ends of the earth. It did not die at the reformation. It is a vast deal easier in every age to be washed with water, than to cleanse the heart — to eat bread, than to resist the devil, who wishes ns to think that we can " live by bread alone." Hence the rush for the ritual is as fresh, oftentimes, in Oxford, Berlin, and in the United States, as at Rome.

It is a rare thing to be truly spiritual, when spiritualizing a natural object. The Mormon woman, betrayed away from her pious home in Vermont, returned in one week to say to her neighbors, that " they began in the spirit, but ended in the flesh." She, no doubt, thought they began in the spirit. And perhaps, many a ritualist has thought, as he began to sink into the outward, and formal, that he was giving to the natural emblems a higher spiritual power. But he will doubtless find to his sorrow, that his spiritualizing of nature, has ended in his materializing spirit.

Some have said that the " Evangelicals," as they are called, have become quite careless of rites. The saying is not true. Many care more about rites, than they do about the spiritual temper with which they are to be prepared for, and followed. The descendants of the Puritans would not stay away from the table of the Lord, but are utterly careless of those services before, which are meant to fit them to apprehend it rightly, and those self-denying labors after, which take up and carry out to a dying world the truths which it figuratively expresses. When we see some chapels on the day of Preparatory lecture, we think a cannon ball might be shot through the side on which the men sit, with but very little danger to human life. Perhaps the same would be the case on the other side, if it was not afternoon, when the burden of house-work is over. And when we see the immediate and earnest rush into the world from a most solemn rite, we begin to think that the reproach of our spiritual feeling undermining God's ordinances belongs but little less to us, than to the Papists. The fact is, we are not bent upon seeing, and cultivating the life of God in the soul. We go to God's ordinances regularly, when we have no spirit to take the kingdom of heaven by violence, for ourselves or others.

Emily knew but little of rites, till long after she had caught the spirit which they faintly shadow. The instructions of her childhood had not been upon sects, or forms, and she was left longto the precious memory, " that the disciples were called Christians, first at

Antioch," and that it is the most valuable name they can bear while they live upon earth. Her whole attention was % confined to herself, a sinful child, and Christ, the child's Saviour. The importance above every thing else of having the heart right in the sight of God, and letting its light so shine, that others might see the way to heaven, became stronger and stronger, till she passed to the place where they see God without intervening mediums, " see him as he is."

CHAPTER IY.

M 'Till God diffuse his graces down, Like showers of heavenly rain ; In vain Apollos sows the ground, And Paul may plant in Tain. — Watts.

It is the idea of some, that the order and variety of the Universe are not due to God, save in a very remote way. The actual creation is very small, perhaps some " fire mist," out of which through internal and external forces have been spreading, cutting off, and revolvingsuns and stars. Xow it is not for us to show at this time, that the laws of nature cannot well be supposed any thing but God's operations, that a universe maintained is indebted to the same act of will, as a universe produced, and that a world without the constant infusion of divine strength, would be as likely to fall in pieces, as the image in a mirror when the flow of the rays of light has ceased. But it is plain that this theory does not descend to the absurdity of supposing that external forces will work out the universe from an object that does not favorably answer to them, that has no material in it such as the rising world is made up of, that is in settled and active opposition to any change from its first state.

Real piety is the love of God in the heart, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, as a Saviour, the love of our neighbor as ourselves, and the views, feelings, and acts which grow from these.

If the beginning of these were in us, we might more wisely talk of education being the efficient cause of their full grown strength. But there are no such beginnings. Indeed, there is a positive contrariety in the soil to the germs of Christian faith and love. The Bible says of us, that we are " dead in trespasses and sins," that we are the " servants of sin," that we " cannot know the things of the spirit of God," that we are at " enmity against God." This is not said of those gray-grown in sin, but of human beings generally ; of children, as well as others. Education then loses its main reliance. It has a rational being, but he is a willing slave of sin. And over all the light you bring him, it must be sadly said, " the light shineth in darkness and the darkness comprehended it not." It seems to be supposed by many that religion is one of the original principles of our nature, and that it is only necessary to direct and strengthen it by discipline. There never was a greater mistake. You may educate or induce a holy being into sin, because he has a love for that natural good which you may present in so glorious a form as to take his whole attention, carry him away from higher considerations, and lead him to seek it to the neglect of his duty. So the tree of knowledge of good and evil as explained and beautified by the serpent, betrayed our first parents from duty and God. But in attempting to educate from sin into holiness, you meet no relish for the spiritual objects, which you present for apprehension and love. You must say as you bring them, " when they see them there is no beauty that they should desire them." You are constrained to sigh after some birth beside the natural, to make your educative energy effective.

u

THE BUD. BLOSSOM AND FRUIT.

You may "marvel'' at it. and think it strange that a child needs to be "born again." But years of unsuccessful effort to teach him to run gladly in the way of God's commandments, may suggest to you the need of a higher and heavenly agency, such as you vrould want to call in. if pouring out your harmonies upon the deaf, and spreading your colors before the blind.

Something more is needed than divine agency as seen in the ordinary operations of nature. Some have supposed that a child is framed to a godly life through the constitutional connection it sustains to its parent, without any supernatural agency save that which acts through natural laws. Xow that God is everywhere in nature ; filling it with his own power and presence, is true : but that he is to be desired for the child, in no other way than to enliven and bear along the sacred influences by which he is surrounded, is not we think to be allowed. The Bible makes a wide distinction between God's providential agency and the operations of his grace. But to suppose that the parent infuses little by little his own spiritual life into the child by patient and constant instruction, so that ere long he is a regenerated being, would be to allow God no different agency in making an heir of heaven, than he has in making the lungs heave, the flower bloom, or the tree grow. Conversion in this case is a natural effect of education, a natural result of the connection which God permits and sustains between the parent and the child. We have a higher idea of God's converting grace than this. It seems to us to be a power, other and higher than that which operates in nature. We recognize no parent, or Sabbath school teacher, or minister of the gospel as wielding the converting and saving grace of God. It goes before them, and prepares the way for all their efforts. It goes beyond them, and touches the heart, and " turns it withersoever he will." And the mind and heart come, " into the light and liberty, of the children of God," not as the body grows from the nourishment the parent gives, but as the sick come to health, the blind to sight, the dead to life, beneath the power and voice of Christ.

We have a higher hope for Emily, than that she had only the state of mind and heart, which religious influences without God's presence and power, or with such presence and power as is seen in the ordinary changes of nature, could give. These left her a sinner for seven years, and if operating alone, would have left her such till she passed into eternity. But God made her " willing in the day of his power." God fulfilled his own saying, " I will put a new spirit within you, and I will take the stony heart out of your flesh, and give you a heart of flesh." It was " the working of that mighty power, which wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead." Being a " new creature in Christ," the religious influences by which she was surrounded fell like seed upon the good ground, so that she became uncommonly useful on earth, and had, we doubt not, an " abundant entrance " into heaven.

CHAPTER V. M And if I e'er in heaven appear

A mother's holy prayer, A mother's hand, and gentle tear, That pointed to a Saviour dear,

Have led the wanderer there." — Mrs. Sigourney.

Early piety and parental training are not connected, as effect and efficient cause. But parental training, is an instrumental cause. It is one of the most effective of this kind of causes. Sad to say, the preaching of the word does not often become "the sword of the Spirit" to children. It is an arrow from the quiver, that goes over their head, and shoots beyond them. The apostle talks of " being corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ." Perhaps the pulpit style has felt this corruption. The truths of the gospel may be stated simply, and plainly. The pulpit need not descend to " baby talk;" but it may speak with the simple, clear, strong language of the Pilgrim's Progress, which Bunyan learned in the school of the Great Teacher, and which makes every child ready to open the door to him, and welcome him in as the guide to heaven. Yet it has not come to this simple, forcible style. Many a preacher would find himself more out of his line, when speaking so that the children can follow him through, than when he casts aside his notes, and talks out the Christian life, as it lies in his own experience. For this reason, religious parental training will be more instrumental, than the preaching of the word, in the matter of salvation. But there is another reason. The hearers are constantly before the parents. Preachers lose their hearers when the sun goes down, perhaps not to see them till the Sabbath dawns again.

Where they are, what they are doing, we may not know. Parents do, or ought to know where their children are, and what they do. They have them in their presence for years together. They are the first to see them in the morning, the last to leave them at night. Their books, their | pleasures, their company are all at the parents' ordering. No motion, no smile, no word from the parent, in whom the child so heartily confides, but he is there to notice it. What a wonderful advantage! There has been great fault found with protracted meetings. But there is one element of power in them, which we cannot well afford to lose. It is this ; that the hearers may be kept for long spaces of time directly under the preacher's voice, and influence. The importance of this cannot be well overrated. What the preacher may not have, God has given to the parent. For months, for years, there is no one to step between him and the child, and tear away the marks which parental looks, life and words, are making. When will the parent know, that he is the " chosen vessel to bear God's name," to those who are " bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh."

" Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." This is the promise of God. Parental training and early piety are connected by the promise of God, that he will bless the one, to the securing of the other. For I suppose " when he is old" does not mean simply when he is gray-grown, but when he is coming along through the periods that follow his childish life. This is a general promise. It shows the channel, in which God means that his grace shall flow. And if a well-disciplined child ever wanders from the right path, it no more disturbs our faith in the general promise, than the coming of a famine makes us doubtful in regard to the succession of 4i seed time and harvest/' What if the child of a minister is sometimes regarded a " scape-grace " above others ! Perhaps it seems so, because he is more narrowly watched, and more widely known, than his associates. Or, what is more likely than that, the cares which others impose, leave that minister but little time for the care of his own house. The child is not trained up for God, and the conditional promise is forfeited.

There need be no fear ; only begin early. If we mistake not, Xapoleon said to the lady, who had by the hand a child of four years, and who asked him how soon the training must begin, " Madam, you have already lost three years." He might have said three years, eight months, or more. There is a period for effort, before the child knows language. There are impressions from looks, tones, movements. Your lowering countenance is interpreted by the little child, as quickly as you interpret the lowering cloud. He is moved by what you are, when you think your inner spirit is open only to God. He knows very soon, whether your will, or his, is to be the law of the house. Upon the decision of this question may hang the question of his piety. It is God's way to have those learn to " bear the yoke in their youth," who, in their youth, are called to that obedience in his kingdom, which he prefers above sacrifice. An unsubdued child at home, is never a Samuel listening to God and crying, " Speak Lord, for thy servant heareth." If, even in late life, he becomes grafted upon the stock of Christ, he twists away into unnatural forms that no one can manage, and forces the beholder to wonder how such a crooked thing could have a place upon Zion. The first wrong deed or word, is to be reproved at once. The old maxim, " resist the beginning/' has a great bearing upon the Christian life. The mother of Emily found a button in her pocket, after she came home from school. It was a large one, — attractive to the child.