man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God," and that the truth resisted always produces yet greater hardness of heart, and that all human wisdom and power are absolutely nothing in converting a soul, and yet that every one that planteth or watereth must approve himself "unto God a sweet savor of Christ" even though he be unto men a savor of death unto death," it is not strange that the preacher should shrink from this weight of responsibleness, and cry out with the apostle, though without the apostle's faith, "Who is sufficient for these things?" But of all the trials of faith peculiar to the preacher, perhaps the severest of all is his continual remembrance that they are peculiar. He must endure them alone. His very office separates him from any adequate sympathy or assistance from other believers. As they have not his work to perform, they can know but little of his hopes of success, and fears of failure, and consequently also of the bitterness of his disappointments. Thus shut up in the circle of his own private and peculiar trials, and depressed with the consciousness that none human can enter for his relief, he may not be able to appreciate the wisdom of the providence, and at length find himself struggling for life against rising doubts of those "things not seen as yet." If in "moments of despondency, Shakspeare thought himself no poet, and Raphael no painter," why should it be thought affectation in the preacher sometimes to conclude that he is "less than the least of all saints!" IV. The triumphs of faith as illustrated in the life and history of Noah. The conflicts and triumphs of faith in the preacher are substantially the same in every age. But it seems to be peculiarly appropriate that we should stimulate our faith by a careful study of the religious history of that "great cloud of witnesses" by whom "we are compassed about." Turning back to the early generations of our race we find a period when "all flesh had corrupted his way." The descendants of Seth had mingled with those of Cain, till "it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth." In the midst of this deep moral night, a man burdened with the curse of sin was blessed with a son. A presentiment of the future celebrity of the child perhaps took possession of the father. And as a first preparation for the triumphs of faith in the hero of our subject, his consecration in infancy should not be forgotten. For Lamech named his son, "Noah, saying, This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord had cursed." Notwithstanding the wickedness of the times, "Noah was a just man, and perfect in his generations." By nature he was no better than others; but he yielded to the strivings of the Spirit, and secured his presiding and protecting presence. The long suffering of God towards his disloyal creatures was great. He waited centuries in vain for any signs of repentance. And not until five hundred years after Noah was born did he threaten a judgment from heaven. The denunciation was terrible. Man was so degraded that he was to be whelmed in one common ruin with the beast, and the fowl, and the reptile. "The end of all flesh is come before me," was the language of the "grieved" Jehovah. But though wroth with the wicked, in mercy God remembers the faithful. Though there be but one in the universe, the Infinite Eye searches him out. Noah, like Enoch, has "walked with God." And the Spirit descends and communes with him as with a familiar friend. Noah is commanded to build an ark, not only for his own preservation, but for that of his family, and a pair of every species of flesh. For a flood is announced, in which all but such as take refuge in the ark shall be drowned. And notwithstanding it may never have rained heretofore, and the ground may never have been moistened except with a mist; and though the size of the ark be enormous, and the burden of the work be on himself, Noah doubts not a moment, but undertakes forthwith what the Lord has commanded. But his faith has no sooner manifested itself in obedience than it attracts attention. "What means this collection of 'gopher-wood?? What means this hewing of timber? What carpenter ever framed into a building such huge beams as these?" Amidst a thousand such exclamations from the surrounding inhabitants, Noah quietly proceeds with his task. His procedure excites their curiosity till they scrutinize and wonder in silence. Then, standing erect, the "preacher of righteousness" proclaims the strange tidings from heaven. He lays open the majestic but terrific conception of the destruction of the world by "a flood of waters;" the righteous alone being saved in "an ark." The people are confounded, but not convinced. Their surprise passes off, and they pronounce him the victim of profound superstition. Their curiosity changes into ridicule and contempt: the ark becomes a bye-word, and the builder a hiss. But with unshaken confidence Noah holds on his course, suffering all manner of derision and abuse from the looker-on, and the passer-by. Though a host of scoffing spectators are present, there is no interruption of the work.. Slowly and surely, and with surprising exactness the timbers are ar-ranged and adjusted, and the vessel goes up, up, and still up, till the command, "With lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it," is completely fulfilled. The stupendous structure has now become a temple in which the heroic builder worships as well as works. Its form, its position, and its hugeness, now presented to the spectator with their combined effect, seem to force the admission that the architectural design must be from heaven. The query arises in one and another, "Is not the old man in his right mind after all? How could he accomplish all this if he has not received a commission from on high?" Meantime, the "preacher of righteousness'" ceases not to warn them "of things not seen as yet," and to exhort them to repentance and faith. Whether standing in the first story, or the second, or the third, or even on the roof, he watches every goer and comer, that he may "preach the word." " A little while, and he who threatened he would come, will come, and make no tarrying, and listen to no calls for mercy. And ye who will not be blessed in believing what ye have not seen, shall be cursed in seeing what ye would not believe." Year after year rolls away until scores are consumed, and yet Noah never forgets to "be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine." And as a century of labor is drawing to a close, he urges reconciliation to God more particularly from the shortness of time. more sounds of the hammer, and the ark will be builded. And when it shall have been coated "within and without with pitch," the sky which has hitherto been so mild and serene will soon assume a new aspect. "For the Lord hath spoken and he shall perform." At length the ark is completed. The difficulties of labor and expense, and the almost "intolerable unbelief and ridicule the undertaking encountered," have at last been overcome. Equally faithful has been Noah in A few the office of ship-carpenter, and in that of "a preacher of righteousness." Not a moment has he queried how the earth would be drowned. Not a moment has he doubted that a flood would come. And five score years has he toiled and preached, under the most trying circumstances, by faith in the promise of God. And now, as he retires from his labor, and beholds his preparation for the deluge, it is only to reveal a still greater depth of faith, in waiting for the command from above to enter into the ark he has made. And again he lifts a warning to the world, ""Seven days,' and the Lord will appear with a flood of waters." 'Seven days,' and ye who have mocked and derided, shall do so no more. Repent, and do works meet for repentance, or in ' seven days' 'He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have you in derision." But his preaching seems to answer no purpose, save that of exciting the people to still greater manifestations of contempt. And pointing perhaps to the neighboring Ararat, they exclaim with all assurance of unbelief, "Shall yon exulting peak, Whose glittering top is like a distant star, It was sad for the preacher of righteousness to be thus forced to conclude that he was "a savor of death unto death" to the whole world. Still he ceased not to "cry aloud, and show the people their transgression." The longer they persisted in their wickedness, the more earnest and eloquent grew the preacher; " and so much the more as he saw the day approaching!" Five days have already gone by, and the sixth is now passing, and the ark stands there complete, majestic, and alone, -the magnificent result of a faith which shall soon remove mountains, and cast them into the sea. And while the preacher of righteousness is paying his last visits to his relatives and friends, and everywhere uttering his last warnings and entreaties, the people on all sides are giving vent to their ridicule. "Tomorrow, and the ark shall prove a monument of the blindest superstition." Alas! and it shall prove a monument of the blindest superstition; the superstition, not of faith, but of unbelief, -not of the preacher of rightcousness, but of the world which he warned of destruction! But with their accustomed obstinacy and unbelief the people retire once more to their rest. The ark, which was designed from "the beginning," and commenced a century ago on the earth, has been finished. And the "seven days" respite foretold by the preacher is drawing to a close. And under the delusion that to-morrow Noah's faith will be shaken and destroyed, and their own unbelief be triumphant, they close their eyes in the sleep of nature, only next to close them forever in the sleep of death. Their dreams correspond to their previous reveries, and again they awake as they fell asleep, infatuated with unbelief. The morning seems the brightest and serenest they have ever beheld. The past six days have been holidays, spent in "eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage." But the seventh is to be the great day of all. To-day the people of the land assemble to see and exult over the folly of Noah. They are becoming impatient to witness his disappointment and defeat. For unbelief itself has not been so confident of the soundness and safety of its course, but that the warnings of faith have wrought up an excitement the most intense. Every hour seems a day, and every minute an hour, when lo! perhaps as the sun is just crossing the meridian, a strange procession of man, and of beast, and of bird, and of creeping things is seen moving in the direction of the ark! Slowly, and orderly, and solemnly, and measuredly, it tramps out the death-knell of the wondering world. And as the preacher and his family, and the male and his female of every species of flesh enter into the ark, and the door closes behind them, the victims of unbelief can scarcely trust their own "sight." They approach the ark, and attempt to go in; but "the door is shut," and no human arm, whether within or without, is now able to force it. They are astounded; yet they will not believe! The day has been calm and clear, and the ground is dry, and high noon smiles cheerfully of "peace on earth, and good will towards men." And as no signs of a flood are apparent, the welkin rings with the shouts of victory and contempt from the multitude assembled to witness the scene. But lo! on a sudden the world is hushed! A zephyr comes! A speck is seen in the west! It increases! It is a cloud! It rolls onward! It spreads over the sky! It darkens the earth! And the lightnings flash, and the thunders peal, and the earth is a fountain, and the heavens are rent, and the torrents fall, and the tornado sweeps, and the dwellings are shivered, and the infant cries, and the mother shrieks, and the father prays; but Mercy is deaf; for creation howls, and the living are dying, and the dying are dead, and the rocks are buried, and the trees are hid, and the hills are sunk, and the mountains are covered, and the waters prevail, and the ark is borne up, a heaven secure from a watery hell, and the "Sea and sky Look vast and lifeless in the Eternal Eye." Ah! this was "their last to-morrow!" And this was the end of their unbelief! Go back from the present a little more than three centuries and a half, and follow a Spanish adventurer through a long succession of difficulties, both private and public, till on the very eve of becoming a sacrifice to the faithlessness of a mutinous crew, when he stipulates only for "three days" longer for the sight of the object of a natural faith; and lo! on the third a Continent is found! But go back a little more than forty centuries, and follow "a preacher of righteousness" through a whole hundred years over obstacles insurmountable except by supernatural assistance, until he comes within "seven days" of beholding the object of a Christian faith; and lo! on the seventh a world is lost? By the triumph of a natural faith Columbus became heir-not even to the glory which is by sight. But by the triumph of a Christian faith Noah "became heir of the righteousness which is by faith." But though the sentence of condemnation was executed upon all flesh so to speak, in an instant, and the conflict of the preacher's faith with the unbelief of the world was now closed, the trial of the preacher's faith is still continued. The moan of destruction which commenced when the Lord shut him into the ark is echoed and re-echoed in the continued thunders and discharges from the windows of heaven, and in the wrathful surges of the deep. But though in tumult of the elements, and under thick clouds of anger, and at the mercy of the winds and the waves, that preacher of righteousness is still nourishing a Christian faith with these wonderful works of God. The incessant pouring of the rain for the space of forty days and forty nights raises not a single doubt. Sabbath after Sabbath is hallowed, month after month rolls away, and that ark, without rudder or sails, rocks on the waves till the end of an hundred and fifty days, when it rests gently and safely down upon the very spot selected by Jehovah. According to the preacher's faith, He who brought the waters is drying them away. And is not this more sublime than any triumph of mere natural faith? Turn back from the present about twenty-five years, and behold an Orientalist* struggling, day after day, at the utmost of his efforts, here with a prospect of success, and there with an actual defeat, to accomplish the long-cherished purpose of a natural faith, till, on a third attempt you behold him slowly and laboriously ascending cubit on cubit upward, and still upward, and finally standing on the hitherto so-considered inaccessible summit of Mount Ararat! But turn back a little more than four thousand years, and behold a preacher of righteousness, month after month, with no defeat, with no effort even, descending cubit after cubit downward, and still downward, by a Christian faith, and at last resting down upon that very summit to which that noblest triumph of a natural faith could only climb up! But no land-no lofty peak is yet visible, and the ark weighs deep in the sea. And three months longer must the waters decrease before even the tops of the loftiest mountains can be seen. And forty days longer still waits that patient servant of God before he begins to be anxious about the condition of the earth. Then he opens the window and sends forth a raven. But that type of unbelief is a bird of the "not clean," and goes a hunting the spoils of the deluge. Betrayed by the raven, however, Noah casts not away his confidence, but after hallowing a Sabbath, sends forth a dove. Round and round above the window she flies, increasing her circle of observation both in height and circumference, until she cannot be seen for the distance. "But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him in the ark." Another Sabbath is now hallowed, and the experiment with the dove is repeated. Faithful to her grand commission she darts up in her spiral circle as before, straining her eye in every direction till on a sudden she hovers a moment, as if gazing at a single point afar off, and then hies away in a straight line in all probability to the province of Akhaltzikhi. Hour after hour is run out, and yet there are no tidings from the little winged messenger. But, "late in the evening," a sound as if something were beating the air is succeeded by a feeble cooing on the roof, and he immediately opens the window and gratefully welcomes his panting dove. Surely, if the raven deserved a punishment, the dove has earned a reward. And according to a Biblical legend of the Mussulmans, "Noah blessed the dove, and Allah gave her a necklace of green." And by no means has she since been forgotten; for the Muses have sung her praises till |