that he has armour of proof wherewith to combat his spiritual enemy: it is not that a great cloud of witnesses are around him encouraging his efforts and espousing his cause. It is because the bosom of Almighty love has been opened to afford him a hiding-place (John i. 18.) it is because his "life is hid with Christ in God:" and when his harassed soul yields to despondency, and in the prospect of snares and dangers on every side give utterance to the timorous cry, "I shall one day perish," then does a sweet still voice speak words of comfort to him, "because I live, ye shall live also-they shall never perish, and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand." And how shall the enemies of David be subdued before him? Shall he trust in his sword and bow, shall his own arm save? Not such is the conclusion to which Abigail arrives in predicting his ultimate deliverance; "the souls of thine enemies then shall he sling out as out of the middle of a sling." Let not the servants of Jehovah be anxious to avenge themselves; a day is coming, in which he will "render unto every man according to his work :" in which he will shew himself a God of judgment, and it shall be but a feeble exercise of his power to rid himself of his adversaries. David was but a stripling, unable to bear the weight of a warrior's accoutrements when he slew the giant son of Anak with a sling and a stone. As easily, as unexpectedly, and by means as apparently inadequate shall all the "workers of iniquity" be brought to destruction, when He cometh to judge the earth. When the guilt of the antedeluvian world had reached its permitted maturity, it needed only a slight and single action of Deity to bring down punishment on the ungodly. "He opened the windows of heaven," and "brought in a flood upon the world of the ungodly;" and when the commissioned angel shall come down from heaven to swear by him that liveth for ever that time shall be no more, it will require but one blast of the breath of his displeasure to melt the ponderous elements, and scatter the wrecks of the burning earth, like sparks from a blazing scroll. Abigail concludes her address to David with an appeal to his natural feelings, so beautiful and touching that to comment upon it seems to take from its force and tenderness. "And it shall come to pass, when the Lord shall have done to my lord according to all the good that he hath spoken concerning thee, and shall have appointed thee ruler over Israel, that this shall be no grief unto thee, nor offence of heart unto my lord, either that thou hast shed blood causeless, or that my lord hath avenged himself: but when the Lord shall have dealt well with my lord, then remember thine handmaid:" remember the counsel I have given thee, and see if thine own blessed experience does not testify that with the merciful, God will shew himself merciful, and with the upright He will shew himself upright. It was a master-stroke of wisdom on the part of Abigail to lead the mind of David on through the openings of futurity, and having placed him in prospective vision on the throne of Judah, to bid him look back upon the present hour in that calmness and alienation of heart with which men are wont to survey the buried past. As the full-grown man smiles at the baubles and gewgaws of infancy, so does the soul smile or sigh at the eagerness with which it strove for its petty interests and fugitive possessions, when they have been swept away by another and a fuller tide in the stream of time. It is good in moments of irritation by some skilful device of wisdom to lead the fretted mind on to the contemplation of a period when the objects of its most vehement contest will be no more remembered than are the withered leaves of autumn when spring has clothed anew the rifled forests, or, if remembered, only as the fructifying causes of imperishable verdure when, by the agency of the Almighty Renovator, tribulation shall have worked patience, and patience experience, and experience hope. Wisely did Abigail set before David the ultimity of his lofty destiny, as a motive to induce the exercise of vigorous self-denying moderation at the present hour; and shall not the high calling of the children of God be urged upon them, as reason enough to stay the strife of passion, to forbear the vengeful purpose, to bless, not curse their enemies, to render good for evil, and patiently to await the time when all grievances shall be fairly and finally adjusted, not in the blind measure of human justice, but in the perfect balance of eternal equity. Daughters of Christianity! imitate the conduct of Abigail: set before the heirs of immortality the crown that awaits them, the kingdom that is prepared for them: speak to them that they be not chased and angered by the scourges and temptations of the wilderness; but bid faith look onward to the promised inheritance, and plead like her," this shall be no grief unto you nor offence of heart, when the Lord shall have done all the good that he hath spoken concerning you, that when ye were reviled, ye reviled not again; when ye suffered, ye threatened not, LINES WRITTEN DURING A THUNDERSTORM, 351 but committed yourselves to him that judgeth righteously, for vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord." LYDIA. LINES WRITTEN DURING A THUNDERSTORM, Aug. 1834. Spirit of storm! Spirit of might! Where art thou winging thy dreadful flight? 'Over the valley and over the hill, Over the city and desert still I have travelled forth on the whirlwind's blast, To tell the deeds that are done below.' Spirit of storm! Spirit of fire! What hath enkindled thy dreadful ire? I marked the wild glance of thy lightening eye, I heard the deep voice of thy thunder tone What hath enkindled thy dreadful ire? 352 LINES WRITTEN DURING A THUNDER-STORM. The shriek of the prey, the victim's groan, And his path o'er the earth is marked with blood; 'Spirit of storm! Spirit of power! It is hid from hell, it is hid from men, Hath brought thee more near than the former one! Where, in that hour, shall thy soul be?' ELNIE |