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DOING GOOD.

CHAPTER I.

CHRISTIAN LIFE.

"For me to live is Christ."-PHIL i. 21.

"Lord, I am thine, and thou art mine.
So mine thou art, and something more
I may presume thee mine, than thine.
For thou didst suffer to restore,
Not thee, but me, and to be mine:
And with advantage mine the more,
Since thou in death wast none of thine,
Yet then as mine didst me restore.

O be mine still! Still make me thine,-
Or rather make no mine or thine!"

HERBERT.

BIOGRAPHY is a very interesting and useful branch of literature. It has always been popular, and in our day commands a large circle of readers. The libraries are full of the lives of the dead. Biography presents to us a rich variety of character, developed by means of different circumstances, and productive of greatly diversified results. By it we make an acquaintance with the typal forms of men, and the features of character and of the society in which they respectively moved. There is much biography in the Bible. True to its grand characteristic, as a book for man, it here evinces a leaning to human taste and necessity which gives it an

attraction, and abundantly illustrates its divine inspiration. If we detach from the sacred volume the life stories contained in it, we obtain a very large portion of holy Scripture. Adam and Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Joseph, Moses and Aaron, Joshua and the judges, Samuel and the kings, Job and the prophets, Ruth and Esther, Ezra and Nehemiah, have a record in the Old Testament of their character and deeds, succinct, indeed, but singularly expressive and suggestive, and which sets them before us in all the reality of life and impressiveness of example. In the New Testament the divinest of lives is a biography sketched by four different pens. Throughout the remaining parts of the word of God are pictures of life and character that add interest even to the biography of Jesus. In CHRIST the typal forms of human life received their consummation. In CHRIST all subsequent histories of men have their model and their gauge. The life of Jesus is an epitome of all biography. The dark sides of human character are condensed into his sufferings and sorrows, and its fairer aspects into the graces which adorned Him who was "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners," and who "went about continually doing good." We can only explain the sorrows of Jesus by the sins of men. We can only account for the virtues of men by the graces of Christ.

Biography in the Scripture gives both the bad and good in character. It does not blot the sacred page with minute details of vice, like "police reports" or low romances, but depicts the sin in such a way as to make it look ugly. It does not paint flattering portraits of virtue, but simply declares it. It does not make the good (with one grand exception) altogether good, nor the bad altogether bad. It finds faults in the excellent, and amiable qualities in the wicked. It reveals prevarication in an Abraham and integrity in a

Pharaoh, revenge in disciples and toleration in a Gamaliel. It presents man as he is, that we may see ourselves.

Again: Scripture biography is not a diary which discloses the life of the closet, nor altogether a history which reveals the life among men. It takes us into the inner chamber, that we may behold the man of God upon his knees and listen to his prayer. It occasionally lifts the veil of domestic life, and shows the family in joy or sorrow. It records deeds done in the world, and reveals man in society. It is the photograph of man as he is before God-the truest life of all.

Biography is valuable to every one. John Foster, in one of his admirable essays, has written on the importance “ of a man's writing memoirs of himself," and asserts most strongly the usefulness of such a review of past conduct and experience. But this has its chief interest for the individual himself. Autobiography is more frequently self-laudation than instruction. Character is best appreciated and most faithfully recorded by another hand than one's own. Life, however, belongs to the individual, and in its general characteristics is the same in all ages. It is the incarnation of principles, and their illustration in practice. It is good to know how others have developed it, and with what success, -to mark what excellences they attained, and what were their deficiencies. But it is a serious thing to live. It is the course of an endless existence, whose future will be influenced by the present and the past. It is that which must receive a shape and perform its work by us. We cannot escape from it. "To be, or not to be?" is not the question. We are, and must exist for ever. The life that is within us will continue and develop itself evermore. It must then be of momentous consequence to us how we live.

"Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream;
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real, Life is earnest!

And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,'
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Finds us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and time is fleeting,

And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,

In the bivouac of Life,

Be not like dumb, driven cattle,

Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,-act in the living Present!

Heart within, and God o'erhead."

Life must have a proper aim, a spiritual character, and godly results, to fulfil its high commission. There are various ways of occupying it, of spending its opportunities, and of consuming its powers; but there is only one way of devoting it to its divine end, and for fully enjoying the blessings which it is capable to receive. Many prefer the course which gratifies the flesh, but dishonours God, and at last brings misery to existence. Few only direct their lives in the channel of divine obedience, and realize eternal bliss. Many of the best men do not secure an invariable blessing

in life, nor maintain a clear consistency. They have darkness as well as light, storms as well as calms, sorrows as well as joys. The frailty of the sinner disfigures the beauty of the saint.

What then is life? After what model and by what motive is it to be framed ?

"For me to live is Christ," said St. Paul.

"A Christian is the highest style of man."

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It is life animated by the Spirit of Christ. "If a man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." Life separate from Christ is spiritual death. There is no life which "is Christ" but by the Spirit of Christ. The Holy Ghost was the animating principle of Christ's life in the flesh, and it is he who quickened us who were dead in trespasses and sins." He who brought life and beauty into the chaotic earth, and who breathed into human nostrils, so that Adam became a living soul, is the author of Christian life. It is derived from as high an origin as physical existence at the first. It requires as real a creation as did the living things upon the earth. Christ, the second Adam, is a quickening spirit, able to impart a spiritual life to those who are dead; and in sending forth his Spirit into the souls of sinners, he creates a life which no name can so fitly designate as his The partaker of the blessing can truly say, "For me to live is Christ." He is "born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." To live in the highest sense is, then, not merely to breathe and maintain in health and exercise the union of soul and body; it is to be animated by the Spirit of Christ. As the tree requires to draw nourishment from the soil in which its roots stretch out,—as the human body requires daily bread for sustaining its life and activity, so the soul requires constant communication with, and participation of, the Spirit of Christ, to

own.

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