ETERNAL GOODNESS. BLESS the Lord, O my soul, And forget not all his benefits: Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; Who healeth all thy diseases; Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; Who crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mercies. PSALM ciii. 2-4. BLESSED art thou, O Lord, our God! who sustainest the living with beneficence, and with great mercy quickenest the dead, supportest the fallen, and healest the sick; thou loosenest those who are in bonds, and wilt accomplish thy faith unto those who sleep in the dust. Who is like unto thee, O Lord of mighty acts! or who can be compared unto thee, who art the King, who killest, and restorest to life; and causest salvation to spring forth! Who is like unto thee, O merciful Father! who in mercy rememberest thy creatures to life! ANCIENT HEBREW RITUAL. I CANNOT think the future world is to be feared, even by the worst of men. I had rather die a sinner than live one. Doubtless justice is there to be done; that may seem stern and severe. But remember, God's justice is not like a man's; it is not vengeance, but mercy; not poison, but medicine. To me it seems tuition more than chastisement. God is not the jailer of the universe, but the Shepherd of the people; not the hangman of mankind, but their Physician, yes, our Father. I know his justice is love; that if I suffer, it is for my everlasting joy. . . . Shall God forget his child, his frailest or most stubborn child; leave him in endless misery, a prey to insatiate sin? I tell you No; not God. Why, this eccentric earth forsakes the sun a while, careering fast and far away, but that attractive power prevails at length, and the returning globe comes rounding home again. Do you tell me that culprit's mother loves her son more than God can love him? Then go and worship her. I know that when father and mother both forsake me, in the extremity of my sin, I know my God loves on. Oh yes, ye sons of man, Indian and Greek, ye are right to trust your God. No grain of dust gets lost from off this dusty globe; and shall God lose a man from off this sphere of souls? Believe it not. I know that suffering follows sin, lasting long as the sin. I thank God it is so; that God's own angel stands there to warn back the erring Balaams, wandering towards woe. But God, who sends the rain, the dew, the sun, on me as on a better man, will, at last, I doubt it not, make us all pure, all just, all good. . . . I expect to suffer for each conscious, wilful wrong; I wish, I hope, I long to suffer for it. I am wronged if I do not; what I do not outgrow, live over and forget here, I hope to expiate there. I fear a sin, not to outgrow a sin. . . Sad and disappointed, full of self-reproach, we shall not be so forever. The light of heaven breaks upon the night of trial, sorrow, sin. The more I live, the more I love this lovely world; feel more its Author in each little thing, in all that is great. But yet I feel my immortality the more. In childhood the consciousness of immortal life buds forth feeble, though full of promise. In the man it unfolds its fragrant petals, his most celestial flower, to mature its seed throughout eternity. THEODORE PARKER. OD created man to be immortal, and made GOD him to be an image of his own eternity. The souls of the righteous are in the hands of ΙΟ |