NTHRONED upon the purple-vested hills The woods were glorious, but far and near Had stained them ruby-red. And the strange stillness soothed us more and more Passing through Fairyland. For twisted roots of wild fantastic shape Wearing an ivy crown. O friend, we knew that happiness like ours Then softly as an angel clothed in white II. Low in the heavens stooped the fiery sun, When sudden I became aware of One He spake of comfort, but I would not weep, At length, grown weary of my woe, I turned "Is this," I said, "the sunset's parting stain "Forgive the feeble soul that understands I knelt and kissed my Saviour's wounded feet, Then on my trembling lips I felt His kiss, SARAH DOUDNEY. "CAST YOUR NETS ON THE RIGHT SIDE." BY THE REV. J. B. OWEN, M.A., VICAR OF ST. JUDE's, CHELSEA. UMAN life, in Scripture and elsewhere, is often compared to a sea. Alike to the fluctuations of destiny, as of the deep, may be applied the proverb-"There are as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it." Men's fortunes vary from many causes; but Scripture and history verify the hopeful rule, "Time and chance happeneth to them all." You hear men sometimes complain, "I never had a chance." This is rarely if ever true. They may not have had the kind of chance they wished, or not one as good as others seemed to have; or it may be they overlooked and missed it, whatever it was; but God's Word is in accordance with social experience: "to everything there is a time." The mischief lies, not in the want of occasion, but in the misimprovement, or absolute abuse, of such occasions as occur, The paternal impartiality of Divine Providence is an encouraging axiom, which should "CAST YOUR NETS ON THE RIGHT SIDE." 775 always prompt us to make the best of such things, Welcome any loss of opportunity, time, or talent as we have, for He hath said, “I will never leave that drives us to the "godliness with contentthee." Nevertheless, to a sufficient extent to ment" which is great gain! Let us gather such make individual action responsible, we are left to grapes as one may from the thorn of secular ourselves alike to "eat bread by the sweat of the disappointment. "Let all things be done decently, brow," and to "work out our own salvation with fittingly, and in order"-i.e., as to time and sucfear and trembling." The success in either case cession of duty. Take a capable student pursuing may be independent of the other. Temporal life his course at the university. It is only by adhering may flourish, and the spiritual life decay; or, vice- to the prescribed course of reading in the given versâ, the poor in this world's goods may be rich in time that he can avail himself of college advanfaith; but as a rule the statement holds good, that tages and preferments. But his fancy turns him "godliness is profitable unto all things, having the aside to other studies, perhaps useful in thempromise of the life that now is, and of that which selves, but with no bearing on the examination for is to come." The secret of all advance, whether his degree. What is the result of his desultory in earthly or heavenly things, lies in obedience to diligence and unseasonable ardour? He ends his one simple rule-viz., doing right things in a right academic career in a grievous disappointment, way. finds he has toiled all the night, but for all purposes of the Tripos has taken nothing. He had. not done the right thing at the right time, and the anachronism had wrought himself a wrong; he had not "cast the net on the right side." But the mistake is not wholly irremediable-the college is not the world. He must try again-must transfer himself elsewhere, and invest in a wiser effort the lesson of his bitter experiences, if he is to get any benefit out of it, be resolved not to repeat his error in not discerning the time, and his loss, nobly recovered, may yet be ultimate gain to him. It is possible-nay, it is not uncommon-to see some men trying to do right things in a wrong way, and other men doing wrong things, after their fashion, in a right way. For example, it is a right thing to be charitable, but not at the expense of justice. My debts must take precedence of my alms, or I give away what belongs to my creditors. In like manner it is right I should work out my own salvation, but not to think to do it by my own merit or operation, as if I had earned it like wages, ignoring the sovereign work of the Saviour and the office of the Sanctifier. On the other hand, it is wrong to set one's heart upon becoming rich, but it is a right way to attain that object by using diligence in business, frugality in expenditure, and uniform integrity with a view to maintain credit. In these things "the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light." The world, in and for its worldly things, exhibits an energy and forethought that puts to shame the apathy and incongruity of many religious professors in their dealings with religious things. Our blessed Lord's direction to his disciples, "Cast your nets on the right side," may be taken, as all his sayings and actions may, in a parabolic sense, as a didactic hint applicable to other relations beyond their primary incident. The apostles had" toiled all the night and taken nothing." How was this? In despair of their Master's economy, they had deserted their proper calling as "fishers of men," and fallen back upon their old trade without him; they had gone out to their night's work without heart or hope, and the effort was a failure. Was the thing hopeless in itself, or only in their own misgivings? Obviously in the latter only, and that on their own confession. "We"not we and thee, but we without thee-" have toiled and taken nothing; nevertheless at thy word we will let down the net." Man's failure is only a harder crisis for faith in God. Happy insolvency that leads us to trust Christ for the true riches! Again, in the choice of a profession or calling, young men don't always cast their net on the right side, and the blunder at starting tracks their footsteps through life. They often choose rather what pleases the fancy, than what consults their qualifications and interests. They cannot honestly say with Peter, "At thy word I will let down the net"-i.e., they do not seek their Divine Master's will, by candidly noting the style of gifts with which He has endowed them, nor ask His blessing, and consequently they are left to their own devices, like the folly of superstition worshipping the idols its own hands had made. Hence there is little hope of even worldly success; of heavenly prospects, none. To embark in a calling, without reckoning into the venture the specialities of personal gifts, previous training, capacity, connections, fair probability of advancement, and some distinct end to be uniformly aimed at from first to last, is almost to begin without a single reasonable ground of success. The man mistakes himself by mistaking his place in life, and rarely detects his error until it is too late to mend it. The vanity issues in vexation of spirit; the youth becomes an ancient before his time, worn out with a weary series of lost labours, frustrated expedients, and bitterly prostrated hopes. He has doomed himself from the outset of his course to the humiliating admission at its close: "I have toiled all the night and taken nothing." Happily for us all, it is not so easy to repeat the wretched miscalculation in waters "-to obtain every advantage in life with difficulty and sacrifice-through childhood, youth, and manhood to eat the bread of carefulness-to be subject to many an annoyance, hindrance, and defeat by the way-to be maligned by envy, delayed by opposition, hurt by unkindness, and injured by injustice, and when we see them, in spite of it all, by the grace of God, holding their own, and maintaining the even tenor of their way, through good report or evil, the simple secret of their moral heroism lies not in themselves, but in their Lord, whose word they had obeyed from the heart, by casting their net on the right side. "Who is he that shall harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good?" the spiritual life. There it is no question of lot of many to be compelled to "fish in troubled personal ability, merit, or moral power. Faith in Christ is equally open to every class of mind. Set aside every work except his precious atonement, every merit except his perfect righteousness, every sanctifying means except the operation of his Holy Spirit. In that sense, "cast the net on the right side," and the result is sure. "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee." Another man achieves wealth, but finds himself without a corresponding position in public estimation. He has not invariably practised strict integrity in his methods of acquiring riches has been a hard man in business dealings, insensible to the pleas of sorrow and misfortune withholding more than is meet, in proportion to his goods, from the claims of religion and charity, and has not purchased to himself a good degree, whether in favour of God or man. All was "fish that came into his net," but he was not "a fisher of men." He did not cast the net on the right side, and hence he toiled the night through, taking nothing that was intrinsically worth taking. Again, there is a religious professor who, like Abraham, directs his children and his household after him in keeping the way of the Lord; but, unlike Abraham, with too little command of temper to commend religion, which with his austere handling, savours less of a gentle Christianity than a pious tyranny. There is always the peril that his family, on escaping the paternal yoke, will fling away the yoke of Christ. Excessive rigour is naturally apt to recoil in licence. Its inconsiderate harshness becomes accessory to the rejection of its own influence The man meant to be faithful, but succeeded only in being severe, exercised too little self-denial to induce others to deny themselves, and failed of effect with others through the palpable failure with himself. Such oppressors of their homes become persecutors of their contemporaries abroad. They punish a man's unbelief, who, whatever wrong is done, is ⚫ done first and last to the man himself. The want of a true religious faith is a great misfortune, but it is an illogical deduction from faith itself to punish the want of it as a great crime. It never will be, by those who really possess faith. Their prejudice may be as unjust, as it is intolerant, but religious faith, like its sister charity, hopeth and endureth all things. Such an imperious temper is a despicable contradiction. In the man himself, it indicates the anomaly of an abdication of the rule of his own spirit, and yet a usurpation of the moral prerogatives of other men. It fails both ways. He who would gain the mastery over others, must himself first be temperate in all things. It is ill casting the net, even at Christ's word, if it be not cast in his way, "on the right side." It is the This rule of casting on the right side cannot safely nor innocently be dispensed with, even in the minute details of action. It is never a good sign to hear men arguing, like the lingering Lot, Is it not a little one?" Small matters assume the greatness of the system of which they form a part, as the trustworthiness of the tiniest cogwheel involves the working of the whole machinery. Preventives are of easier application than remedies. The serpent is more readily crushed in the shell, than when suffered to grow, and entwine our members in its deadly embrace. Trifles are often the seeds of weightiest events— beginnings of the grandest ends-steps towards the most momentous conclusions. If a single vote has made a governor, so has an unintentional slight of an ambassador kindled a furious war. It is the small yielding to temptation that eventually peoples prisons and feeds the gallows. Trifles are indications, just as straws are weathervanes. A bit of stubble agitated by the rising wind, catching the eye of a Fitzroy, may signal an array of telegraphs round the coasts, which save fleets of merchantmen. However insignificant a claim may seem, in our view of the proportions of duty, honour the small liability by its equitable discharge. Whether in things great or small, the same spirit of whole-hearted and single-minded obedience is concerned. "Cast the net on the right side," or you may lose net as well as fishmay compromise character by the small misconduct, and incur the suspicion implied in the distich against "Them who would steal a pin Living to steal a greater thing." But what is of more import than man's condemnation, the petty violation of righteousness entails the judgment—" He that offendeth in one point is guilty of all." Not to cast the net on the right side, is to cast ourselves on the wrong one. Life is full of illustrations of the comfort, wisdom, and safety of simply choosing the right in all things, and by the grace of God abiding by the results 1 life is grandly luminous and star-like, brilliant with the phosphorescent gleams of genius, who "seem to come short of Christ," yet of whose beneficent lives and labours Jesus would himself have said, as he did say of some such a one in the Gospel, "Thou art not far from the kingdom of heaven." The net of such a man seems cast on the right side, but not altogether, as we believe, "at the word" of Christ. Like the judge in the Gabbatha, he could perceive and stand up, in the tumult of popular injustice, for the mysterious royalty and sinless humanity of the world's Messiah, recognising and revering Him as the sacred type of other victims to the blind onslaughts of envy and uncharity, teaching them how to bear their lot. Such a man is readier to avouch, with Pilate, "Behold the man!" than to echo Isaiah, "Behold your God!" It is not our province to judge any man's futurity; his past is all that is ours, and all, alas! that is now his own. The brilliant wake of beauty left on its passage between the troubled waters on either side, indicates the path of a stately vessel that but lately disappeared beyond the horizon. So far as a true loyal love of our neighbour involves, in spite of negative dogma, a true love of God, the great writer, whose loss the public had not long since to mourn, was an apostle of the second table. Some of us could have wished he had believed and written more, but not one of us that he had written less. He was no poet of vice, nor pander to false sentiment, whether in political or moral theories. Hypocrisy, pretension, obliquity of all shades, writhed under his caustic exposure; but no genuine claim, however humble, was left unpleaded, no merit missed its meed, no sorrow its condolence, nor any sham escaped its of the choice. In casting the net on life's precarious waters, all manner of things are apt to be enclosed. We are not answerable for what may come up from the sea, but we are answerable for what we retain. The parable teaches us to store up the good fish, and cast the bad away. The need of such discrimination meets us at every turn of our lives. The casual acquaintances whom we make our friends-the habits of thought and action we cultivate-the society we frequent-the books we read-the daily food and drink we consume-the style of fashion and expenditure to which we help to give currency-the social, religious, and political opinions we endorse-the class of amusements we support-in all these things is the life, or as it may be, the death of spirituality. Among them may be discerned the marks of "the carnal mind which is enmity against God," or the proofs of the spiritual mind, which attends to the things of God and "sets its affections on things above, where Christ sitteth." A Christian is a whole "man in Christ "-one who has received, not the spirit which is of the world, but the spirit which is of God, that he may know the things which are freely given him of God. His unction from the Holy One operates, like the Divine law of instinct in the lower animals, to guide him in all his ways, to eschew the evil and choose the good, as they befit the new creature's nature. He knows no more of what may lie before him, than the fisherman knows what is hidden within the veiled bosom of the sea, but at least he casts the net according to his Master's word, on the right side, and leaves the event to Him, who, however often He may suffer His best-loved ones to toil and weep through the night, never fails to come with His heavenly light and abundant joylash of shame. English literature will admire and and mercy in the morning. We must not expect miraculous draughts, but some reasonable "take" will reward the cast of the net. I close the paper with a reminder to the young readers of THE QUIVER. There are degrees of rightness in the side where different men cast their nets. From the ship of the disciples every net was not cast on precisely the same spot of water, yet whether thrown in from prow, or stern, or starboard side, all were filled with fish, and all forsook them at the call of a higher duty. But for their Lord's supply they would have had nothing to forsake. It is very suggestive. The Lord often pours out the blessing of abundance, that "this or that man may have somewhat to offer;" endows a Paul with more than ordinary gifts to enhance the impressive logic of the sacrifice, when the world hears such a man avowing, "What things were gain to me, them I counted loss for Christ." The golden and silken network is cast into the sea to catch men, and bring them to God. celebrate his philanthropy, when his theology is forgotten, or else its orthodoxy be assumed from the loving catholicity of his spirit. In the light of the much evil the possession of such gifts might have done, and the much good their consecration did, it was happy for the world, as well as for himself, that he "cast his net on the right side." Apart from profound respect and appreciation of the sterling genius of the deceased, the one radical defect in his religious sentiments at least suggests the admonition that the loftiest intellect is no more independent of Divine teaching than the lowliest. On the contrary, the peculiar temp. tation to genius is a haughty self-reliance, and an aptness to arrogate independence of those external influences from above, on which humbler capacities, led by the spirit of Christ, are thankful to lean. It is thus the world "by wisdom knew not God." It is thus true saving knowledge of God our Saviour is never attained, until "the There is another type of man whose orbit through mean man boweth down, and the great man |