THE Sabbath School Magazine. NO. II.] FEBRUARY 1, 1884. [VOL. XXXVI. Christian Hope: A NEW-YEAR ADDRESS TO THE YOUNG. By the REV. DAVID MACEWAN, D.D., of Trinity Presbyterian Church, London. MY DEAR YOUNG FRIENDS, It is hard to bear disappointment. The boy who has been working diligently at school for a prize, and sees it, at the end of the year, given to another; the farmer who has spent his time and labour in his fields, and sees his beautiful crops, when harvest comes, all blighted and spoiled by the storm; the merchant who has committed his valuable goods (from which he expected great profit) to a ship, and hears that, with all its treasure, it has been lost at sea; and the father and mother who have set their affections and hopes on some darling child, who grows up only to fade away like a flower before their eyes, or to be lured to a ruin worse than death by the vices of the world -these all know how hard and bitter disappointment is. Young folks like to look forward. I have heard a song that tells of a little boy sitting by his fireside and gazing dreamily into the fire, busy with thought "building castles in the air"-picturing to his mind the great things he would be and do when he became a man; and this is a kind of employment that all young hearts are prone to indulge in. The beginning of each new year is especially a time for hope. It may be compared to a rosebud. You look upon it in early summer, as it grows on its slender stem, and you know that it has folded within itself all the richly-coloured leaves and sweet fragrance of the flower in full bloom. You do not yet know what the year is to bring to you. You are hoping that it will bring you many happy days and much good. It will gradually open up like the flower. And, as you look forward to other years yet to follow, you are expecting and desiring that each as it comes will bring with it rich stores of blessing. What a precious thing hope is! When Alexander the Great was distributing the spoils he had won in battle amongst his generals, he was asked what he retained for himself, and he answered-"Hope!" This B was, in his view, the best of all treasure. And I cannot desire anything better for you than that your heart may be always cheered and your life brightened by a hope that can never disappoint or put you to shame. Young hearts have often hopes which only disappoint and sorely grieve them. If, for example, your whole expectation and desire in life is to be rich and great, to be much thought of by others, much admired and praised, you may struggle and struggle and never reach these objects; and, even though you gain them, you may find, as many have done, that they utterly fail to give the happiness you anticipated. It is sad to think of people chasing shadows that flit away as often as they try to grasp them. It is sadder still to think of them grasping what they thought would bring them joy and peace of mind, to find that it only brings them greater sorrow and trouble. It is like one who imagines that he has found a sparkling diamond, when he discovers that it is only a piece of broken glass; or like one who fancies he has come upon a costly gem, and finds that it is only a painted bauble. You may lay your account with meeting many disappointments in life. "It is not all gold that glitters," and it is not all the buds in a garden that come either to flower or fruit. You will often get least where you expected most. And what most you trusted in as a prop to support the heart, will frequently prove but as a spear to pierce it through with much sorrow. Yet there is hope which never disappoints, which whispers ever to the heart, "Be of good cheer;" which, like a star shining in the sky through all darkness and tempest, continues to light up the heart with its beams, though all other hopes be crushed and extinguished; and it is this hope, precious above all price of which, in looking forward to the future, I wish each of you to be possessed. Now, If you live in humble dependence on God, you will always have this hope. There was an old minister in Scotland, whom I knew well. No one ever had a more checkered life. He had known what it was to have dear friends, and to lose them; what it was to be cheered by hope, and to be saddened by disappointment; what it was to enjoy the world's praise, and to withstand its scorn. Some of his trials had been very great and bitter. The friends of his youth had all passed away before him. But on his death-bed I remember these were his favourite lines, and as he repeated them they seemed to express the whole spirit of his life :— "My soul, wait thou with patience Upon thy God alone; On Him dependeth all my hope And expectation." Dis If you live in this spirit, you will be kept from entertaining all proud, foolish, unreasonable, and extravagant expectations with regard to the things of this world, which invariably end in the disappointment of those who are unwise enough to cherish them. Your grand hope will be in God. You will not look for too much from any inferior source. appointment, when it comes, will thus fall upon you lightly. It will not crush you, for your hope in God will still remain. Depending on Him, and desiring only what is agreeable to His will, you cannot possibly expect too much from Him. Great as your expectation may be, His power of helping and giving will always be still greater. He can answer His people's prayers, and fulfil their hopes, "exceeding abundantly above what they can ask or think." His resources can never be exhausted. No true child of God, therefore, can be altogether without hope. He is called "the God of hope." When other props break, and other sources fail, in the dreariest day, and the darkest night, under the saddest of disappointments, and the sorest of trials, you will still be able, like the Psalmist, to say to your troubled heart, "Hope thou in GOD, for I shall praise Him." 66 Again, If you live in the faith and love of Jesus, you will always have this hope. You remember Stephen. When wicked men are gnashiug with their teeth at him, and lifting the cruel stones with which to dash out his life, what is he doing? He is kneeling on the ground and looking up. But is he not in despair? No. For he sees the heavens opened, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God." And you remember Paul and Silas. When in the inner prison, their feet fast in the stocks, their backs bleeding from the scourge, and the darkness of midnight all around them, what are they doing? Are they in despair? No. They have Christ in their hearts. Therefore they are full of hope and joy. They know that all will be well with them, and so they are praying and singing praises to God. You see nothing can take hope from those who believe in Jesus and truly love Him. If you believe that Jesus came down from heaven to save you, and suffered the awful death of the cross to take away your sin, and if you believe that He rose again from the dead and now lives and reigns in heaven for your salvation, you cannot but love Him, and you may be quite sure that He loves you, and will never cease to care for you. Whatever friends you lose you will always have a friend in Jesus. He is to the soul what the great strong anchor is to the ship, keeping it secure amidst dashing billows and raging storms. Your anchor of hope is Christ, and your faith and love form the double chain by which He keeps hold of you, and you keep hold of Him. If poverty come He will be your riches, if sickness come He will be your health, if sorrow come He will be your joy, and if death come He will be your "hope of glory." And thus, with such a Saviour to trust in, the star of hope, so 'sweetly shining," need never disappear from the firmament of your life. Then, If you live in the diligent discharge of present duty, you will always have this hope. There is no harm in looking forward, but in thinking of the future you must take care not to neglect the present. It is not what you expect to be, but what you are now; not what you expect to do, but what you are now doing, that is the important question. Present duty should have first attention. The man who is always dreaming of to-morrow to the neglect of to-day, will never know much either of profit or satisfaction in life. It is when you feel that you are doing your part to the best of your ability that you are likely to be most cheerful and hopeful in spirit. Indolence, disobedience, untruthfulness, and all other kinds of naughtiness, are apt to throw a dark cloud over the heart. They make you unhappy with yourselves, and, like a fog in the air, they make everything look dreary around you. The sun itself cannot be seen to shine if dark clouds cover the sky, and you must not be surprised if all hopefulness depart from you when you are wayward in your conduct. God will not work a miracle to keep your hope bright. And those who wish to have a light heart and a bright hope should study to live a pure and consistent life. You have no right to expect great things for yourselves in the future if you are regardless of the things which belong to the present. It is the diligence and dutifulness of to-day that wins for you the title to hope well for to-morrow. Do your best in everything that you are called to do, and though you may frequently fail in gaining all you expected or desired, you will have the satisfaction in your own breast of having done your duty, and will be entitled to hope for better things in the time to come. And then, If you live in earnest preparation for heaven, you will always have this hope. One of the most cheerful people I ever knew was an old lady of ninety-five years of age. Conversing with her, I remarked that it must be very sad for her now to look back on all her friends who had died. "Yes," she said, "but I look forward!" And when Prince Leopold said to the venerable Professor Lawson that he was glad to see such an old man so cheerful, he could answer, "Please your Royal Highness, I know no one who ought to be cheerful if not an old man looking forward to the joy of his Lord." Look forward, then, dear young friends, but do not let your eye rest only on the few years you may live here; look beyond to that heaven which Christ is preparing for you, and then you shall have a hope which nothing in this world, no disappointments, no losses and no crosses, can ever take from you. When death itself comes, when all earthly hopes must perish, and a last adieu be paid to all below, you shall be able to feel like the great Scottish Reformer, John Knox, who, being asked when dying, "Hast thou HOPE?" spoke nothing, for he was too weak to speak, but raised his finger, pointed upwards, and so expired. May you all have this hope, and may you never destroy the loving hopes that dear friends now cherish concerning you! The Mental Peculiarities of Childhood in Relation to Religions Teaching. By J. S. CRICHTON, M.D., Arbroath. (Continued from page 20.) 3. The third point to which I would refer is the strength of the imagination in childhood. When children read or hear a story, the persons and the scenes present themselves to their minds in a way older folks must envy. They seem to see the scenery and people as if both were actually before their eyes; and with regard to Bible stories, we must help them to do this. Our great aim should be to make them to realize more vividly Scripture characters, and the surroundings amidst which they lived. Now-a-days, in books giving much interesting information about these Eastern lands, and the manners and customs of their inhabitants, we have most valuable helps towards presenting the history to the children in a very vivid and realistic way. In teaching and impressing our scholars with the truths of the Gospel, and the principles of Christian life and morality, anecdotes and illustrations are of great service. It is a mistake, however, to tell aimless stories, as I have heard some ministers preaching to children do, merely to keep up their attention. A story or illustration should be straight to the point, and almost carry its own application on the face of it; for, as I have said already, spun-out or ingeniously contrived and lengthy applications are simply thrown away. It is only by the use of incident and illustration that we can get the minds of children to rise to any conception of abstract truth; and this will lead us presently to notice the incapacity of children to grasp abstract truth. But before leaving the subject of the imagination in childhood, I would like to give a caution which my medical observation moves me to enforce. Carefully avoid filling the mind of a child with images of terror. The very vividness with which the child-mind sees everything with the eye of the imagination, makes it dangerous and hurtful to present before it images of awe and terror. These may have serious effects on a child's nervous system, and occasion an amount of misery we can hardly realize. Many a child has its nervous system shaken by an injudicious use of ghost and other fright-giving stories, and sometimes even of religious terrors. To children the darker side of the Divine government is of little practical moment. The Apostle says, "By the terrors of the Lord we persuade men;" and terror has its use in arousing the indifferent and the careless, and awakening from his fatal sleep the case-hardened sinner. But the little ones need gentler leading. They are better and more powerfully drawn from sin to God by cords of love. Love will woo and win them in gentle ways, and lead them to Him who said, in accents trembling with Divine tenderness and love," Suffer the children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven." Terror will only bewilder and drive them away. The fierce and angry gale only serves to root the full-grown oak more firmly in the ground; but it will crush the tender sapling, which must be sheltered from its rude blast, and which will grow strongest in the bright sunshine and still summer air. 4. And now we proceed to notice the incapacity of children for grasping abstract truth. Of course it is exceedingly difficult really to ascertain how far a young child realizes this. How little do we know, for instance, how far the ideas of God and eternity are grasped by the child mind! "Oh! say not, dream not heavenly notes To childish ears are vain ; That the young mind at random floats, Dim or unheard the words may fall, And yet the heaven-taught mind Possibly they realize and understand these things in a simple artless way better than we are apt to imagine; but of this, at least, we are certain, that abstract terms and abstract statements are quite unintelligible to children. One way or other they may grasp the grand realities |