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No. 6.1

A Monthly Magazine for Sunday Reading.

Sunday Talk.

MARCH, 1884.

All Literary Correspondence to be addressed to the Editor, 253 Argyle Street, Glasgow.

Business Communications to be addressed to the Publishers, Messrs. GILLESPIE BROTHERS, Ltd., 253 Argyle Street, Glasgow.

Sermon.

"GOOD TO BE AFFLICTED."

By the Rev. P. ANTON, Minister of Kilsyth. AUTHOR OF "MASTERS IN HISTORY," "ENGLAND'S ESSAVISTS," &c.

PSALM CXix. 71-"It is good for me that I have been afflicted."

CONSIDERING the nature of my subject, I am sure

there is no need I should say one single word by way of introduction to my discourse of to-day. With affliction and the sick bed we have been long familiar, and when we speak of them we are not speaking of new but of very old friends indeed. Without further words then we will enter the hushed chambers of the houses of mourning, we will hear the whispers of the unwearied watchers, we will look on the thin and white forms of the sick ones lying there so quietly, and we will recount together some experiences of deep distress. We will talk to each other of some of those things that make it sweet to kiss a heavenly Father's rod, we will detail some experiences of the back-lying years, we will mark those beneficient issues of our tribulation which make us able to say-feeling we are telling the truth when we are saying it-"It is good for us that we have been afflicted.

I. AFFLICTION GIVES US TRUER VIEWS OF OUR BELVES.-It tells us distinctly, but at the same time very forcibly, how little any one of us would be missed in the world. Now that is a cold hard fact we do not like to bring home to ourselves. When we are going about our work we see what we are doing, we see what we are performing every hour, we see distinctly what would go wrong if we sat down for a few minutes and

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folded our hands and took no notice. You think if you what a were not at your place of business to-morrow, host of things would be sure to go wrong, what a number of things would not be rightly done because you were not there. You think again, some of you, if you sat down by your looms for a little half-hour, of all that would happen. The warp would get disordered, the threads would break, the shuttle would be driving. empty, the web would be spoiled, and everything would go wrong; all, if you only sat down careless for a short half-hour. These things being so, you realize your importance, you see how you could not by any chance at all be done without. You see very clearly how much missed you would be if you were away from your work, only for a very short space: so while one is in health, these things all tend to foster one's ideas of his own importance. But, strange to say, although we would be terribly missed if we were away from our work for an hour or two, let us be away for a week or two, a month or two, a year or two, and we will not be missed at all.

One evening comes. You feel strangely wearied by the work of the past day. You leave it all behind you and walk slowly away as if there was "a clog of lead about your feet, a band of pain about your brow," and a sense of incapacity about your heart. Next morning you are not able to go back again. There is your chair empty; there is your book open; there is your pen lying waiting you, but you cannot go and use them again. Your loom stands in the factory all quiet, while the others beside it are busy; your web is half completed and the shuttle is useless that you could work so deftly. But this does not last long. While you are lying quietly by yourself, another comes and takes the chair-your chair, and opens the book-your book, and plies the pen-it is your pen, and carries on the accounts, and answers all the questions just as well as you used to do. While you are lying far from the clacking factory, another comes and stands before your loom and sets it in motion. The shuttle flies, the bars revolve, the cambs oscilate, the reeds take the woof home, the web is completed and the loom is filled again. You were missed for the little space, but you are not missed for the long weeks, Everything goes on just as it used to do. No doubt, there are many kind friends sorrowing,

but away out there the cold world is not missing you at all. You know there is nothing waiting for you to do, nobody asking when you will be back again, nothing that is not going on because you are not there. And so while you are lying sick, and the bells ringing the people to church, and the whistles calling at the railway stations, and the ships ploughing the silent main, you get time to think how very little and insignificant you are; how the great world would miss you but little, and would go on without you just as actively as it ever did with you.

I am not saying this of the commoner occupations. I am saying it with an eye to the highest as well as to the lowest. Affliction tells the same tale to the statesman and clergyman it does to the humblest in the land. One Sabbath morning comes: the bell rings, the congregation gathers, but no minister comes. That occurs one Sunday, but it does not occur again. Next Lord's day the pulpit is filled as before, the worship goes on as formerly, and the sick homes of the parish are all comforted, as they use to be, although the venerable pastor goes no more out or in amongst his people, or divides amongst them the bread of life.

You say, my hearers, this is all most true, but where is the good of it all. There is good in it. It is good for a man to have his self-sufficiency taken out of him; it is good for a man to know he can be done without. Although it were only that we might know how frail and insignificant we are-only that our pride might be checked, it would be good for us to be afflicted.

II. AFFLICTION GIVES US TRUER VIEWS OF THE WORLD.In times of sickness it is not merely the case that the world forgets us, we also begin to forget about the world. When the hand of God is on us in affliction, the world does not seem nearly so large or so important as in seasons of health. You know how when anything is viewed from a great distance it looks very small. Some of the stars are thousands of times larger than this planet, but they are so far away from us that they seem to us to be but mere points of scintillating fire. From the sick bed we see the world as we see a star; it is far away and it has become very little to us. Formerly we used to be all taken up about it, now however, we find it looks small and insignificant. In the quiet of the sick chamber, we find its rude voices come to us in subdued tones, or only reach us in the faintest murmurs. This is one of the fine advantages of affliction; it helps us to regard at their true value, the fading, perishing things of earth. When we are in the world it engrosses all our time and takes up all our attention. We conceive there can be nothing more glorious than its glories, nothing more honourable than its honours, nothing more interesting than to watch the

motions of its tides and currents. So soon, however, as our heads are laid down upon our pillows, other and better thoughts come to us. The rough world seems far off, but another and brighter world seems nearer; our eyes rest on sweeter scenes than those of earth and our spirits walk in diviner company. It seems to us that those who pass their whole lives in perfect health, pass them at some considerable disadvantage to themselves. Good is it when summer days come round, to leave one's home and visit other neighbourhoods and see other sights than those on which the eye has been accustomed to rest; good is it to see the great crags frowning on the sea, good to see the mountains capped with eternal snow lifting up their heads into the still spaces of the sky; and good is it too, my friends, to be taken by the hand of God and laid down sick upon our beds, that we may get other views than those of earth, and behold other sights than those of time.

And, my hearers, I am sure we never stood in any sick room-silent and with a touched heart, without thinking how the one in deep distress has now other things to think of, than those which used formerly to occupy his thoughts. It touches me to notice how little former things are thought of then. The romance that used to give so much delight and at which the sick one drank such draughts of pleasure, lies unopened now. The work on history that occupied the patient's studious hours, and in which he lived over again scenes of revolution or of blood, the dust falls thicker on it day by day as it lies there on the shelf. And the newspaper, -the newspaper so anxiously waited for, so eagerly read, with its gossip and its politics, its spites and personalities, it is unopened: you notice that to-day's sheet is piled above yesterday's, and you know that to-morrow's will be laid unopened on the top of it again. Standing in the sick room one feels in a very real way that the interest of the former things has, to the sufferer, passed completely away. We might speak of other scenes equally tender and touching, but there is little use; the lesson is the same from each one of them: no more, no more to the sick one are the things of the world anything. And when we are laid down ourselves, how strange does it seem then we should have thought so much about a thing so trivial! that we should have estimated at so great a value what is hardly worth a straw! That we may make a correct estimate of the things about us, that the things of time should not occupy a first but a subordinate place in our affections, that the heart may be raised from the things temporal to the things eternal, -it is good for us that we should be afflicted. III. AFFLICTION GIVES US TRUER VIEWS OF LIFE.— Sickness fills the mind with a chastened sobriety; accompanied by the power of the Holy Spirit it makes

a man staider and more self-possessed. There is no mistaking the man who has known much sorrow, and to whom that sorrow has been sanctified. He is a man sweeter, gentler, kindlier than other men. Affliction has in it a power to quicken the memory. So soon as we are laid down in the darkened room, the mind wanders away back through the past years. In the hush of the chamber, the sins and errors of the past seem to rise up again and take living forms. What we thought was forgotten, we recognise then to be imperishable. At such times a man may track himself in his own snow. In the sick chamber we behold a mysterious hand writing on the wall, strange fingers of terror pointing to us out of the darkness; and sins we thought long buried peering into view. Through the gloom the grey monuments rise and everyone bears its sad story in indelible lettering.

We fancy sometimes it has been by a desolate track that we have come; again we conceive we have passed along a sea-washed shore, and there on the beech we behold the wrecks of our broken life-purposes. Here is a hull, a hole in one of its sides and fast filling with sand, and here again is a broken rudder, and here, once more, a shattered mast. In the first days of affliction we behold, with strange vividness, the broken and unfulfilled purposes of our days lying all along the shores of life. At such times, all we meant to do, but have not done, floats calmly in before us like pieces of log borne on a full tide. The lost opportunities float before our vision like living realities-like draggled weed in a current they swim past.

Good is it to be afflicted that we may learn the reality of life-have its inner meaning and purpose brought home to us. Let your heads be laid down for a week or two, and you will then see more clearly than you ever saw before, that life's golden hours were not given to be frittered away in vain occupations, nor life's opportunities to be wasted, nor life itself to be taken at random or hap-hazard. You will not be long laid down when you will find yourself saying, If God spares me to rise again, I will take life differently in the future from what I have done in the past. No grey monuments of sin will I have on my future track, no sad broken wrecks strewing my sunlit shores. You will not be long laid down when you will feel coming on you like a terrible misery, visiting you like a fierce shame, the absolute nothingness of all you have ever done for Christ in comparison with what he has done for you. You will then see, although you have worked and toiled for yourself, yet for that Saviour who died for you and gave himself for you, you have done hardly a thing— spoken hardly a word. Good is it to be afflicted that we may make this resolve, and by the grace of

God keep it to the end, that if we are spared to rise again, we will carry our cross with more patience, and by the help of the Holy Spirit, live more for Christ and less for ourselves.

IV. IT IS IN SEASONS OF AFFLICTION THAT WE GAIN OUR RICHEST EXPERIENCES OF DIVINE LOVE.-It is also in seasons of affliction that we experince the largest outflow of human love. In proportion as we are forgotten by the outside world, when we are laid on a bed of suffering, do we seem to be remembered by those of our relations who are dear to us. As society falls away from us, the friends of home grow ever dearer and dearer. In ordinary times, the wheels of domestic life do not always run smoothly; when, however, affliction comes, it sweetens all their motions and everything moves quietly again, like a piece of freshly lubricated mechanism. How often when the sister is ill does the rough brother prove himself a very kind tender-hearted brother indeed. Affections that slumbered or were repressed are almost invariably drawn out in the time of deep distress. Good is it to be afflicted, although it were for no other reason than that we might understand, as members of families and congregations, how much we are loved.

And this human love should help us to understand the sweetness of those divine experiences that come to us in seasons of deep distress. In times of affliction many things become clearer to us about God that formerly were very mysterious and incomprehensible. This clearer view does not lighten God's chastisement, but it makes us better able to bear it. Understanding what He is wanting to bring us to, understanding that He is working for our good, we then resign ourselves to His will. In times of affliction, we feel that God has brought us into the wilderness that he may speak to us comfortably about our souls. In seasons of distress we feel he has "taken us aside from the multitude" that He may tell us without fear of disturbance or intrusion those serious things we had not time to listen to, when we were hard driving it in the world.

In the first days of illness, we usually look back only. to brood, but by and bye over every grey monument of sin we see standing a cross; by and bye we look back only to realize the need we have of Christ. This looking back discloses a sight which touches us. Through the weary, snowy waste of life we have come, we see the prints of other feet beside our own, we see that all the way One has been walking near us although we did not see Him, has been close at our side although we did not discern Him. Aye more, we see by the footprints and the marks of blood that this One has been following us in sorrow, following us while his hands and

feet were bleeding for us, following us while His heart

was yearning over our erring ways.

But this is not all. When the work of affliction is perfected, a great change comes. The past sinks out of sight, the heart ceases to grieve, the past is forgotten and in days of suffering our thoughts ultimately set in that unbounded love the Father hath bestowed on us in Christ. Eventually the height and the depth, the length and the breadth of the love of God in Christ Jesus, crowds in and crowds out all other considerations

and every emotion is lost in the hope that ultimately

we may find rest in him. Oh! it is good to be afflicted for then from the earthly Pisgah God gives us the vision of the sinless land. Oh! good is it to be afflicted for then we feel the heavenly motions and know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge.

Good, my friends, are many things in God's world. Good is health, good is life, good are kind friends, but good also is heaven sent sorrow. And I am sure of this looking back on wife or child you have lost, looking back on the deep distress from which you have been raised and thinking of the high resolutions you have kept ever since these times, I am sure there are many of you can make these words of the Psalmist yours, and sayfeeling how true they are-"It is good for us that we have been afflicted."

And now unto Him who hath given us the promise of the life that now is; as well as of that which is to come, and whose grace can alone strengthen us to live, now so that hereafter we may abide in His presenceunto Him be glory for ever.

Amen.

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OME years after the rebellion of the '15, in the

SOME

parish of Birse, a wild hilly district of Aberdeen

shire, a schoolmaster of repute, named Skinner, married the widow of the Laird of Balfour. To this couple on the 3rd October, 1721, was born a son, John, destined to be the most remarkable of his name among his countrymen. What of sweetness, courage, or poetic fancy, the boy may have owed to his mother we cannot tell. To her training he owed nothing, as she was taken from him ere any picture of her could fill his eye or heart. Shortly after his wife's death the elder Skinner was transferred to the parish of Echt, where he taught for fifty years, with an efficiency which was remembered in the place for several generations, as we have been assured by those who knew it forty years ago. Whether he nursed his young genius on such aspects as nature presents in the Hill of Fare, the Leuchar Water, and the Loch of Skene, whether he saw the beauties of Deeside, and the rugged torrent of the Feugh, not so many miles away, we have no means of knowing. He certainly did get a most careful education from his father, and all his life through wrote Latin with ease and pleasure. His knowledge of Latin doubtless procured him the bursary which enabled him to pass from his thirteenth to his seventeenth year as a student at Marischal College, Aberdeen.

Leaving the University he began schoolmastering, like his father. While at Monymusk, in the capacity of assistant or "insett dominie" he made the acquaintance of the Episcopal clergyman, and this changed the current of his life. He became a convert. Youth is ever ingenuous and honest in conviction, and at eighteen few men think of the worldly consequences of a change of creed. As it happened, John Skinner was leaving the communion of the Church of the people, and the Church favoured by the State, for one that was suspected, persecuted and despised, and which, whatever its faults or follies may have been, has certainly never been in a position to bribe men into its ministry by any prospect of worldly advancement. He seems to have been attracted by the service and by the reasonableness of the Church order. He was neither moved by any political chivalry, nor led away by imposing ecclesiastical pretensions, or narrow fanaticism. Here, also, he began to poetise, and the longest of his poems celebrates a Christmas "Ba'ing," at Monymusk. He delighted in the scenery, and he fell to studying and admiring human nature.

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The Life and Times of the Rev. John Skinner, M.A.. of Linshart, Longside Dean of Aberdeen; author of "Tullochgorum." By the Rev. William Walker, M.A., Monymusk. London: W. Skeffington & Son, 163 Piccadilly, W.

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