The Christian life cannot be an easy life, because it is a life of prayer and communion with God, and no one needs to be told how difficult it is amid pressing cares and worldly engagements, with pleasure, ambition and gain all taking up our thoughts and occupying our hearts, to hold that sweet and heavenly converse with our Creator which the relations he sustains towards us require. No one needs to be told, that the spirit immersed in earthly pursuits does not willingly soar on the angel wings of contemplation to the Source of light and happiness; or if by chance in some moment of inspiration it mounts up like the lark to its native seat, it is soon brought back again by the ties that bind it to earth. All who have ever prayed must have experienced this difficulty, and have mourned over it as one of the sorest trials. The Christian life is a life of temptation, and therefore it is not an easy life. Every thing in the world about us, every thing in our own souls, every blessing God has given us, every affliction he lays upon us, every appetite and passion he has implanted in our nature, every circumstance in our condition, is a trial to our virtue. We cannot take a step in the world without being exposed to temptations. We meet them amid the busy haunts of men, and in the quiet retreats of our leisure hours, in our families, and in private, in joy, and in sorrow, in sickness, and in health, in prosperity, and in adversity. They come upon us when we least expect their approach, and battle against our virtuous principle when we are indulging fond dreams of security. They are sleepless, crafty and powerful enemies. They steal upon us, as the gentle wind steals through the green foliage, hardly moving a leaf or uttering a sigh. And not before they have triumphed over our virtue and bound us in chains of iron, are they revealed to us in all their fearful proportions. Surely while beset with such adversaries it cannot be easy to preserve the purity of our souls untarnished and their liberty unimpaired. The life of the Christian is also a life of improvement, therefore it is not easy; for what is more difficult than to subdue our natural propensity to indolence and press on heedless of toil, in the rugged path of Christian virtue and holiness? What is more difficult, after we have made some progress in the acquisition of the grand object of existence, than to avoid indulging the dangerous but fascinating dream, that we are now safe and need advance no farther? What is more difficult, than to press on daily and hourly in a way whose termination is constantly receding from us as we advance? What more difficult, than to gain not merely one virtue, but all virtues, and manifest every moment more and more of their power over our character and our conduct? And yet all this the Christian is bound to do, if he would be faithful to his privileges and immortal hopes; and therefore he has before him a most arduous, though a most glorious work. The Christian's life is moreover a life of benevolence-unwearied benevolence in the cause of suffering and sinful man. But what exertions and sacrifices are required of those who seek to benefit their race. How much have they to contend with from the malice of enemies, the coldness of friends, the blighting of fair prospects of usefulness, and the ingratitude and contempt with which their self-denying labors are often visited. How difficult it is, to learn the art of doing good. How hard, to wait with patience for the results of our exertions, and at last perhaps behold all our expectations disappointed by some untimely and unforeseen accident. Yet this is the Christian's duty, and oftentimes the Christian's lot. Humility is another essential quality of a religious life, and this is opposed to all those proud, presumptuous feelings that grow with our growth and strengthen with our strength, until they become part and parcel of our very nature and cannot be separated from it without the most vigorous exertions nor without deeply wounding many of our dearest feelings. But they must be separated from it, if we would be Christians. We must cast all our pride off at the foot of the cross, if we would bear that cross and imitate the example of him who suffered upon it. This is not the work of an hour or a day, but of a whole life. Finally, the Christian's life is a life of self-denial, and this virtue implies a perfect command over all the appetites and passions of our constitution, a noble disdain of any thing which threatens the security of our virtuous principle, an unflinching adherence to duty when duty brings no reward but the reward of a peaceful conscience, and a steadfast pursuit of the one great design of existence, whatever other objects or pleasures or pursuits may present themselves and seek to draw off the eyes and the thoughts from that goal of all our exertions. He who possesses and practises this virtue will say that it cannot be acquired without unceasing effort, without indefatigable self-control, without the concentration of every principle of his moral nature; for he knows how much its acquisition has cost him. And so is it with every other virtue of the Christian character, it is gained only by toil and sacrifice and privation. It is the fruit of prayer, meditation, vigilance and self-discipline. Is it not then a mistake, to look upon the life of the Christian as an easy life; and is it wise or safe so to regard it? Ought we to shut our eyes to the difficulties and dangers that attend upon the steps of virtue? Ought we to indulge the vain hope of entering heaven by any other path than that which the Saviour hath trod? Ought we not to look about us and see where we are and whether we are tending, and having determined with ourselves that we will be true to ourselves, true to our hopes and true to our God, press forward with undimmed eye and undaunted heart towards the glorious prize of our high calling, the prize of eternal happiness and eternal usefulness? I wonder that such an error as the one I have been contending against should ever have become prevalent in the world. I wonder that men do not see and feel that the Christian character cannot be an easy acquisition in the midst of so many obstacles and hindrances which encumber the advance of the soul towards its true destiny. For what on earth is easy to be gained? Is it wealth, or knowledge, or fame? These require the most untiring toil. And shall Christian goodness, that noblest of acquisitions, that most enduring of possessions, be gained at a less expense than the vanishing riches and pleasures of the world? God forbid that one thorn should be taken out of the crown of virtue, one obstacle from its path. For the crown would be worth nothing, unless it was the reward of labor and sacrifice; the path would not try our strength, if it were smooth as the verdant lawn and level as the ocean. Let the Christian believer do the work given him to do with all his might, for it is a noble work and demands his whole power. Let him fight the battles of virtue valiantly, for the Lord is on his side. Let him strive to enter, and he shall enter into the Christian kingdom on earth, and the heavenly kingdom above. W. A. NOTICES OF THE LATE REV. DR. GREENWOOD. WE are called by the Divine Providence to record the death of another minister of our religion, a steadfast advocate and exemplary disciple of our faith. He had long seemed to be on the point of leaving us for another world, but we had become so accustomed to his frail appearance that the intelligence of his death startled us as if he had been taken from the midst of strenuous employment. Instantly however we remembered that for years both he and we had been expecting the event that now came to him so gently, and we felt that for him " to die was gain," even beyond the experience of most of those who "have died in the Lord." The sermon which was preached to his bereaved congregation on the Sunday after his death, by Rev. Dr. Frothingham, has since been published. We have been permitted to take some extracts from discourses delivered in other churches on the same day. They may be properly introduced by a few dates. Francis William Pitt Greenwood was born in Boston, February 5, 1797. He entered Harvard College at an early age, and was graduated in 1814. His studies for the ministry he pursued at Cambridge, and soon after he began to preach was invited to become the pastor of the New South Church in Boston, as successor to Rev. S. C. Thacher. He was ordained over this charge October 21, 1818. The constitutional delicacy of his frame soon manifested itself under the labors of this situation in such a decided form, that he was obliged to suspend his work in less than a year from its commencement, and by advice of his physician visited England, where he spent two winters, chiefly in the mild climate of Devonshire. Failing however to regain any firmness of constitution, he felt it to be his duty to resign his ministry, by a letter dated at Caermarthen, in South Wales, April 21, 1821; in which, alluding to a former communication, he remarks," How happy I should have been if these fears had proved false, and my anticipations been contradicted, I need not tell you; but it has been ordained otherwise. I am still an invalid, and the disorder under which I labor, if not incurable, is at best so firmly seated that I cannot flatter myself with the idea of ever again being able to exercise the duties of the ministry."* Yet it was kindly appointed that, though always after this, we may say, an invalid, he should have strength sufficient for a most useful ministry with another congregation. After his return to this country he resided some time in Baltimore, where he edited the Unitarian Miscellany, and preached as regularly as his health would permit to the congregation of which Mr. Sparks had lately relinquished the charge. Contrary to his fears that he "must give up a profession in which his heart was engaged," he so far recovered his strength that in the summer of 1824 he accepted an invitation to share the ministry of King's Chapel in this city, in connexion with Rev. Dr. Freeman, whose advancing years and infirmities made him desirous of the assistance of a colleague. For some time before Dr. Freeman's death the whole care of the pulpit fell on Mr. Greenwood, and after his death he continued sole Minister, though often, especially during the last two or three years, interrupted in the discharge of his professional duties by severe attacks of hemorrhage from the lungs, and for more than a year before his death unable to enter the pulpit. The winter of 1836-37 he passed in Cuba, and was probably benefitted by its softer air. His illness during its long continuance was attended by more of prostration than of suffering, and for months he seemed to stand on the very brink of the grave. He continued to ride out almost daily, and in June last went out of town, to reside in Dorchester through the heat of the summer. During the winter and spring he saw his friends and conversed with them cheerfully, manifesting the same character in confinement which he had * A passage in this letter describes so truly the principles which guided his pulpit exercises in subsequent years as well as in his earlier ministyr, that we may be excused for quoting it. After speaking of the brief period of his connexion with his people, he adds:— "In my public instructions I have endeavored to avoid the unprofitable discussion of contending systems and jarring creeds, and have chiefly confined myself to the great duties of piety and morality as the substance and sum of true religion and true Christianity. Love to God and love to man I have invariably considered as comprising the whole of our duty, and I have never consciously separated holiness from virtue, faith from practice, or the actions of this life from the awards of another. What I have said, I have said sincerely; and as I have not thought it necessary or proper to advance opinions which might be both offensive and unimportant, so neither have I at any time used a form of words which might give a contrary impression to what I conceived to be the truth of God.' |