Morning “After that ye have suffered awhile, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen,

settle you.” 1 Peter 5:10

 You have seen the arch of heaven as it spans the plain: glorious are its

colours, and rare its hues. It is beautiful, but, alas, it passes away, and

lo, it is not. The fair colours give way to the fleecy clouds, and the sky is

no longer brilliant with the tints of heaven. It is not established. How can

it be? A glorious show made up of transitory sun-beams and passing rain-drops,

how can it abide? The graces of the Christian character must not resemble the

rainbow in its transitory beauty, but, on the contrary, must be stablished,

settled, abiding. Seek, O believer, that every good thing you have may be an

abiding thing. May your character not be a writing upon the sand, but an

inscription upon the rock! May your faith be no “baseless fabric of a vision,”

but may it be builded of material able to endure that awful fire which shall

consume the wood, hay, and stubble of the hypocrite. May you be rooted and

grounded in love. May your convictions be deep, your love real, your desires

earnest. May your whole life be so settled and established, that all the

blasts of hell, and all the storms of earth shall never be able to remove you.

But notice how this blessing of being “stablished in the faith” is gained. The

apostle’s words point us to suffering as the means employed–“After that ye

have suffered awhile.” It is of no use to hope that we shall be well rooted if

no rough winds pass over us. Those old gnarlings on the root of the oak tree,

and those strange twistings of the branches, all tell of the many storms that

have swept over it, and they are also indicators of the depth into which the

roots have forced their way. So the Christian is made strong, and firmly

rooted by all the trials and storms of life. Shrink not then from the

tempestuous winds of trial, but take comfort, believing that by their rough

discipline God is fulfilling this benediction to you.

 

Evening “Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and

their children another generation.” Joel 1:3  

In this simple way, by God’s grace, a living testimony for truth is always to

be kept alive in the land–the beloved of the Lord are to hand down their

witness for the gospel, and the covenant to their heirs, and these again to

their next descendants. This is our first duty, we are to begin at the family

hearth: he is a bad preacher who does not commence his ministry at home. The

heathen are to be sought by all means, and the highways and hedges are to be

searched, but home has a prior claim, and woe unto those who reverse the order

of the Lord’s arrangements. To teach our children is a personal duty; we

cannot delegate it to Sunday school teachers, or other friendly aids; these

can assist us, but cannot deliver us from the sacred obligation; proxies and

sponsors are wicked devices in this case: mothers and fathers must, like

Abraham, command their households in the fear of God, and talk with their

offspring concerning the wondrous works of the Most High. Parental teaching is

a natural duty–who so fit to look to the child’s well-being as those who are

the authors of his actual being? To neglect the instruction of our offspring

is worse than brutish. Family religion is necessary for the nation, for the

family itself, and for the church of God. By a thousand plots Popery is

covertly advancing in our land, and one of the most effectual means for

resisting its inroads is left almost neglected, namely, the instruction of

children in the faith. Would that parents would awaken to a sense of the

importance of this matter. It is a pleasant duty to talk of Jesus to our sons

and daughters, and the more so because it has often proved to be an accepted

work, for God has saved the children through the parents’ prayers and

admonitions. May every house into which this volume shall come honour the Lord

and receive his smile.