“How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in his excellent word!
What more can he say than to you he hath said,
You who unto Jesus for refuge hath fled.”
—KIRKHAM.
“THE last Sunday of the old year!” Mrs Travilla said in a low, meditative tone, more as if thinking aloud than addressing her companions.
It was evening and all the family at the Oaks were gathered about the fire in the parlor usually occupied by them when alone. It was not so large as the drawing-room and seemed cosier for a small company.
“Yes, a solemn thought,” said Rose; “the last Sunday and the last hours of the old year seem most appropriate seasons for a glance backward at the path we have already trod, and forward over that which still lies before.”
“Yes, looking back to see wherein we have stepped aside out of the strait and narrow way that leads to eternal life, and forward with the resolve that with God’s help we will walk more steadily in it; that we will run in the way of his commandments.” It was Mildred who spoke.
“And not at our shortcomings only,” resumed the old lady, “but also at God’s great mercies in the past and all his great and precious promises for the future. ‘Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.’ ‘I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.’ ‘And even to your old age I am he, and even to hoar hairs I will carry you.’ ‘This God is our God forever and ever, he will be our guide even unto death.’
“I want to testify to you all to-night that in a life of threescore and ten I have found him ever faithful to his promises; goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life thus far, and shall surely do so to the very end.
“I have not been without trials—many and sometimes very sore; having seen the grave close over a beloved husband and five dear children—but he has sustained me under them all. Oh, it is in the darkest hours the star of his wondrous love shines forth in its greatest power and splendor, and we learn the sweetness of resting wholly upon him! As my days, so has my strength been; because the eternal God was my refuge, and underneath were the everlasting arms.”
“Ah!” said Mildred, breaking the silence that had fallen upon them with the last words of her dear old friend, “all we want to make us supremely happy is faith enough to believe every word our Master says, to trust him fully with both our temporal and spiritual interests, and to keep all his sweet commands.”
“Such as what, love?” asked her husband softly, sitting close by her side.
“I was thinking of the opening verses of the forty-third chapter of Isaiah,” she answered. “In the first and second verses he says, ‘O Israel, fear not; for I have redeemed thee; I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee; when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.’
“And again in the fifth, ‘Fear not, for I am with thee.’ Could we miss being happy if we fully obeyed so much as this one command, ‘Fear not,’ and fully believed and trusted in these precious promises?”
“I think not,” said Mr. Dinsmore, “and what right have we to disobey in being afraid of anything—loss, accident, sickness, death, the enmity and malice of temporal or spiritual foes?—when he bids us fear not! And again he says, ‘Be careful for nothing.’ ‘Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on.’”
He paused, and Mrs. Travilla added another quotation.
“‘But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.’”
“And,” said Rose, “Paul tells us, ‘Godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.’”
“Papa,” said Elsie, “mayn’t we see how many of these little commandments we can remember?”
“Shall we?” he asked, glancing around the little circle.
All agreed that it would be a pleasant and profitable exercise, and Mrs. Travilla, as the oldest person present, began, the others following as a text occurred to them.
“‘My son, give me thy heart.’”
“‘Come unto me,’ the word of Jesus,” Rose said, “and he bids us bring to him others who have need of healing; ‘Bring him hither to me,’ he said of the boy who had a dumb and deaf spirit. ‘Let him that heareth say come.’”
“And having come,” said Mildred, “we are to be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might, and to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”
“‘Casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you,’” was the doctor’s text.
Then Mr. Travilla: “‘Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.’”
Mr. Dinsmore’s: “‘Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer.’”
Elsie’s: “‘A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another: as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.’”
Annis repeated: “‘Love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous.’”
Adelaide: “‘In lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.’”
Then it went round again.
“‘Let patience have her perfect work.’”
“‘Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.’”
“‘Let your conversation be without covetousness, and be content with such things as ye have.’”
“‘Be not forgetful to entertain strangers.’”
“‘Use hospitality one to another without grudging.’”
“‘As we have there opportunity, left us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.’”
“‘Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honor thy father and mother.’” This came from Elsie’s sweet lips, and as she repeated the command her arm crept lovingly around her father’s neck; for she was, as usual, close at his side.
“‘Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life,’” Annis repeated.
Then Mrs. Travilla: “‘Let us run with patience the race that is set before us.’”
Rose: “‘In everything give thanks.’”
Mildred: “‘Ye believe in God, believe also in me.’”
Dr. Landreth: “‘Bear ye one another’s burdens.’”
Mr. Travilla: “‘Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.’”
Adelaide: “‘Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith your God.’”
Mr. Dinsmore: “‘Provide things honest in the sight of all men.’”
Dr. Landreth: “‘Every man shall bear his own burden.’”
A slight pause followed the last text, and then Mrs. Travilla broke the silence.
“In all these and many more we learn his will concerning us,” she said, “and he tells us ‘If ye love me, keep my commandments.’ ‘He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me.’ Obedience—to a parent, and God is our Father; to a Master, and Jesus is our Lord and Master—is the test of love.
“‘We love him because he first loved us’; and obey him not that we may be saved, but because we are saved.
“‘Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.’
“‘Looking unto Jesus’—trusting in him alone for salvation, trying to be like him, and to know, to do, and suffer all his holy will—this is what it is to be a Christian; a follower of God—not as a slave—but as a dear child. ‘Be ye therefore followers of God as dear children.’”
“Whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister and mother,” read Mr. Dinsmore from his open Bible.
“Let us search out something more in regard to that will.”
“Please read the fourth and fifth verses of the first chapter of Ephesians,” said Mrs. Travilla.
He turned to it and read: “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.”
“What a blessed will!” she commented—“to predestinate us to the adoption of children!—us! rebels against his authority, enemies by wicked works. And then it was his will to give his only begotten and well-beloved Son to die that we might live. He said, ‘Lo, I come to do thy will, O God.’”
“‘And this is the will of God, even your sanctification,’” quoted Mildred. “What Christian heart but must rejoice in that!”
Then Rose read: “‘And this is the father’s will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.’ Oh!” she exclaimed, “shall we not rejoice in his will?”
Mr. Travilla’s Bible lay open before him. “Here,” he said, “in second Peter, third chapter and ninth verse, we read, ‘The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness, but is long suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.’”
Then turning to Ezekiel, eighteenth chapter, “‘Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed, and make you a new heart and a new spirit, for why will ye die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God: wherefore turn yourselves and live ye.’”