THE HAPPY HOME. I. THE LAST Century a Russian emperor gained much renown by the exertions and sacrifices he made for his dominions. Impressed by their savage state, and eager to introduce the arts and accomplishments of more cultured nations, he resolved to become himself the engineer and preceptor of his people. Instead of sending a few clever men to glean what they could in foreign regions, he determined to be his own envoy, and leaving his Moscow palace, he set out to travel in Holland and Great Britain. He was particularly anxious to carry home the art of naval architecture; for he wisely judged that without ships and seamen his empire would never be able to turn its own resources to account. However, he soon found that no man could learn to be a ship-builder by merely looking on; but whatever it might need, Peter was determined to do. With a noble energy he changed his gay clothing for the garb of a carpenter, and spent week after week in the building-yard at Saardam, wielding the hatchet, flourishing the tar-brush, and driving bolts till the penthouse rang again; and soon was he able to go home and teach his people how to build ships for themselves. No wonder that, whilst other monarchs are depicted in purple and ermine, the artist should prefer representing Peter, the Czar of Muscovy, in his red woollen jacket, and crowned with the glazed hat of a sailor; with a timber log for his throne, and an adze for his sceptre." And no wonder that a grateful country should rear to his memory the proudest column in the world, and christen by his name its capital. Far nobler than this achievement of the Emperor Peter, are some facts recorded in the history of philanthropy. It was a nobler thing, for instance, when, in order to gain personal knowledge of its horrors, and to be able to testify against them afterwards, an English gentleman took his passage in an African slaver, and submitted voluntarily to months of filth and fever, at the peril of his life, and to the hourly torture of his feelings. And still nobler was the conduct of those angelic missionaries who, finding no other way to introduce the gospel among the negroes of Barbadoes, sold themselves to slavery, and then told their fellow-bondsmen the news which sets the spirit free. And noblest of all, was the self-devotion of two Moravians, of whom some of you have read. They were filled with pity for the inmates of a fearful laza The vignette represents an interview betwixt our own great Duke of Marlborough and the Imperial Operative. retto. It was an enclosure in which persons afflicted with leprosy were confined; and so terrified for its contagion were the people, that once within the dismal gates, no one was suffered to quit them again. But the state of its doomed inmates so preyed on these compassionate men, that they resolved, at all hazard, to cheer them in captivity, and to try to save their souls. They counted the cost. They said, "Farewell freedom, farewell society, farewell happy sun and healthy breezes," and passed the returnless portals, each a living sacrifice. The state of our world touched with compassion the Son of God. He left his home in Heaven, and came hither. The King of kings put off his glory. He came to this scene of guilt and misery. He left the adoring fellowship above, and came down among creatures who disliked him, and could not comprehend him. On his benevolent errand he alighted on this plaguestricken planet, and became for more than thirty years identified with its inmates, and in perpetual contact with its sin and its sorrow. And whilst his eye was intent on some bright consummation, he did not grudge to be for many years the exile and prisoner, and at last the victim. And I think it should be interesting to you, to remember the lot in human life which the Saviour selected. He had his choice. He might have chosen for his residence a mansion or a palace; but he chose for his domicile, so long as he had one, the cottage of a carpenter. He cast his earthly lot alongside of the labouring man; and besides the intentional lowlihood, there were other ends it answered. It lent new dignity to labour. Some silly people feel it a disgrace to work; they blush to be detected in an act of industry. They fancy that it is dignity to have nothing to do, and a token of refinement to be able to do nothing. They forget that it is easy to be useless, and that it needs no talent to cumber the ground. But the Lord Jesus knew that it is best for the world when all are workers, and he conformed to the good rule of Palestine, which required every citizen to pursue some employment. And instead of selecting a brilliant occupation, he gave himself to one humble and commonplace, that we might learn how possible it is to do extraordinary good in a very inconspicuous station. And by this selection he left an example to working men. Rough work is no reason for rude manners, or a vulgar mind. Never did there traverse the globe a presence so pure, and a fascination so divine, as moved about in the person of the "carpenter's son." So gentle in his dignity-so awful in his meekness-so winsome in his lovingness-so dextrous in diffusing happiness -so delicate in healing inward hurts-so gracious in forestalling wishes! no rules of etiquette, no polish of society, can ever yield anew the same majestic suavity. Amid the daily drudgery, his soul was often swelling with its wondrous purpose; and whilst shaping for the boors of Galilee their implements of industry, his spirit was commercing with the sky. They are not little occupations, but little thoughts, and little notions, which make the little man; and the grandeur of mien, and the engaging manners which emerged from that Nazarene workshop, are a lesson to those who handle the hammer, the spade, or the shuttle. But far more,-the sanctity. In a town of bad repute-forced into the company of ruffians and blasphemers,―all the uncongenial fellowship showed him the more conspicuously "holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners." And if you complain that you are shut up to the society of loose and low-minded men-if constrained to listen to words ribald and profane, or to witness coarse debaucheryremember that it was in the guise of a labouring man that the Saviour fought the world's corruption, and overcame. And if like to be worsted, cry for help to Him who, amongst his other memories of earth, remembers Galilee,-who, now that he has done with the carpenter's shop for ever, has not forgotten the surly neighbours, and the abandoned town; and whose solitary example destroyed the proverb, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth ?" And by choosing this humble lot, the Saviour learned to sympathize with penury. Whatever wealthy bards may sing of the sweets of poverty, it is a painful thing to be very poor. To be a poor man's child, and look through the rails of the play-ground, and envy richer boys for the sake of their many books, and yet be doomed to ignorance; to be apprenticed to some harsh stranger, and feel for ever banished from a mother's tenderness and a sister's love; to work when very weary; to work when the heart is sick and the head is sore; to see a wife or a darling child wasting away, and not be able to get the best advice; to hope that better food or purer air might set her up again, but that food you cannot buy, that air you must never hope to breathe; to be obliged to let her die; to come |