THE CHRISTIAN TREASURY. 133 CHRIST AND THE WORLD. BY THE REV. HORATIUS BONAR, KELSO. "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and be tween thy seed and her seed."-GEN. iii. 15. must be no alliance, no half-measures, no truce with the world. There must be open warfare. Christ expects this from you. He expects you to come out of the world.-2 Cor. vi. 17. He expects you to be quite different from the world.-Rom. xii. 2. He expects you to be crucified to the world.-Gal. vi. 14. He expects you to oppose the world.- James iv. 4. Ile expects you to testify against the world.—John vii. 7. He expects you to overcome the world. things, exactly what he himself was in the world.-1 John iv. 17. These things Christ expects from all who are called by his name. He expects that you will always, on all occasions, and in all society, take his side, not the world's. And as Christ and the world are enemies, you must choose a side. You cannot remain silent—you cannot remain neutral. Wherever your Saviour went, he always testified for his Father, and he expects you to do the same for him. Followers of the Lamb, will ye not do this? Will ye shrink from this? Will ye be ashamed of the cross-afraid to avow your Master? What! Is the world's friendship so precious, that for it you would be content to lose the friendship of your beloved Lord? What! Are the world's smiles so attractive, that for them you can forego the smile of your Father? Are the world's pleasures so sweet, its glories so dazzling, that for them you would fling away the joys of the kingdom CHRIST and the world are opposites. They are not merely different, but they are as utterly opposed to each other as day is to night as heaven is to hell. The one presents a perfect and irreconcilable contrast to the other. "What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion bath light with darkness? and what concord hath Christ with Belial!"-2 Cor. vi. 14, 15.-1 John v. 4. He expects you to be, in all All, then, who belong to Christ must be totally opposed to those who belong to the world. They are not only different from the men of the world, but they are utterly opposed to them; they form a contrast so marked and so decided, that any union between the two is impossible. Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world."— John viii. 23. "We know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness."1 John v. 19. Their principles are not the same, their motives are not the same, their feelings are not the same, their prospects are not | the same, their tastes are not the same, their habits are not the same, their joys and sorrows are not the same, their hopes and fears are not the same!-all, all are different. As the feelings, the tastes, the joys of angels, are different from those of devils; so are the feelings, the tastes, the joys of the saints, different from those of the men of this world. The prince of this world and his subjects are at one. "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.”—John viii. 44. It follows, then, that if the world be at one with Satan, it must be the enemy of Christ and of all that are his. It is of great importance to fix this truth in the mind, as many, if not all, of the mistakes of men on the subject of conformity to the world have arisen from overlooking the impassable distinction, the irreconcilable contrast, between Christ and the world, as well as between all who are Christ's and all who belong to the world. the glories of the unfading crown? But what is the world of which we speak, and of which so much is spoken in Scripture? It is called by various names. It is called the seed of the serpent-the children of the devil- || children of wrath; in short, it is composed of all unconcerted men. All who are not saints, holy ones, Christ's flock, Christ's disciples, the elect—all who are not born again, belong to the world. It is, then, against the principles, the habits, the pleasures, the lusts, the sins of these, that we are to testify. The course of this world," as the apostle calls it, we are to renounce, and the life and conversation of all who walk according to that course we are to condemn. We are to keep ourselves unspotted from the world-to hate even the garments spotted by the flesh; we are not to touch the 66 unclean thing, lest thereby we should be ourselves defiled, and countenance sinners in their sin. Even if we get no harm ourselves, yet if we, by partaking, encourage a sinner to go on in any amusement which, however innocent in itself, is yet leading him to neglect higher concerns, then that is sin to us, and we are, in some measure, guilty of a fellow-sinner's blood. But let us speak more at large of the world's amusements and pleasures. They are such as suit the tastes of carnal, unconverted men. And what would we think of a Christian who had any sympathy in these tastes? Is not the fact of a man's relishing the world's pleasures a sufficient proof that he belongs to the world, and that he is no Christian? Is not the fact of a man's having a taste for the theatre, or cards, or balls, a sufficient proof that his tastes are those of the world, and not those of Christ that he is, in truth, an unconverted man, or, at the best, a miserable backslider? But it is said they are innocent amusements. Innocent! And will a man, calling himself a Christian, dare to say that he will spend hours, ay, even one hour, in that of which all that can be said is, that it is innocent! Dare a Christian do anything which is not profitable, in some way, either to himself or to others? Innocent! These amusements are just Satan's wiles to lead souls to forget eternity. Is it not an awful truth that, at this moment, thousands and tens of thousands of souls are, by these very amusements, led luring on to perdition, blinded to their immortal welfare? Innocent! They are the means employed for expelling God from the affections, and keeping him out of the soul. Are not these pleasures, innocent as they may be called, just the flowers which Satan strews in the sinner's path to adorn the way to hell? What a handle Satan does make of the word innocent!-thereby showing us that it is in the apparent innocence of these amusements that the deadly poison lies. Were they openly noxious, they would not really be so pernicious and so fatal. The seeming harmlessness is the fatality of the spell ! In no case does Satan so completely triumph as when he can get professing Christians to countenance the world in their amusements. Then the poor, deluded world is hopelessly ensnared. Its only hope was, that Christians would lift up their voice against its vanities, and thereby save it from ruin. Satan's fear was, that some bold Christian voice would sound an alarm, and mar his deadly plot. But now his triumph is complete! His endeavour to ruin souls has been fearfully seconded. And by whom? By one who names the name of Christ. And there is yet worse than this. Satan has sometimes persuaded not only private Christians, but ministers of the Gospel, to sit down by the world's side, and take part in its pleasures. This is the consummation of his hellish craft. A minister of Christ going to the theatre, attending balls, or sitting down to cards with the world, against whom he is called to testify!' What would an apostle say to this? For any Christian, or Christian minister, to countenance the world in that which is leading them away from God, is to share in their sin and to be guilty of their blood. But is it wrong to engage in a thing which is not of itself decidedly sinful? In answer, we would say, that even admitting that some of these amusements are not actually in themselves sinful, yet 1. A thing which is harmless in itself, becomes sinful when it excludes things of greater moment, and more immediate concern. The world's pleasures do this, and are, therefore, to be condemned. 2. A thing may [not only be harmless, but even lawful, and yet we may have no time for it. Other things may have a stronger claim upon our time. When our time is limited, we are not to consider what is merely lawful, but what is of most importance. The concerns of our souls must, therefore, occupy our first attention. Till they are fully settled, we are not at liberty to attend to any things whose only claim is that they are harmless. It is a posi tive sin to engross our attention with lower things, while higher things are unsettled. It is, therefore, a positive sin, in any one, to follow the world's pleasures till he has made sure of the salvation of his soul. This consideration supersedes much vain arguing about the fancied innocence of worldly pleasures. A Christian has no time for it, even had he the taste. And if a Christian has no time for it, how much less has a man of the world-an unpardoned sinner! 3. Any amusement which is decidedly the world's amusement, ought to be avoided by a Christian. Even if it were harmless, even if he had time for it, yet the fact of its being the world's favourite amusement is enough to make a Christian willing to forego it. Card-playing and dancing are instances of this. Even were they innocent, yet since the world has appropriated them, a saint ought not to indulge in them. Touch not the unclean thing. Love THE PROFLIGATE'S DREAM. 135 | permitted, if not ordained, by "Him in whom we live, and move, and have our being?" not the world, neither the things of the world. Garments spotted by the flesh are to be hated. These things may be helpful in settling the Whether my readers shall think these ideas minds of some who are too apt, from circumconfirmed or otherwise by the following dream, I do not know-nor, in very truth, do I much stances, to be led away from their stedfastness care, since it is not for the purpose of supportand circumspection. In these days we needing any preconceived theory that I relate it "to walk in wisdom towards them that are without "--we need to manifest to all around what a Christian really is. here, but merely as a most uncommon instance of continuity of purpose and of imagery in a dream, and a graphic force of delineation, that might almost suit it for the subject of a drama; dreamer's relatives are among the most wealthy was dreamt, and that the descendants of the and respected families in Glasgow. There is too little tenderness of consciencethere is too much conformity to the world and let my readers rest assured that the dream there is too little close walking with God-there is too much compromise of our principles as 'saints; hence the necessity for being called upon to watch and to keep our garments." And it may be, that the Spirit may bless these few abrupt remarks for leading some to ask if they are really living separate from the world-if they are really acting and speaking as witnesses for Christ before a crooked and perverse gene To these I have no intention of adding one, good or bad. I am content to observe, that while Judgment sleeps, Imagination wakes; and relieved from the surveillance of her staid sister, she revels amidst the inexhaustible stores of ideas which she finds in the mind; and seizing these in heterogeneous handfuls, she thrusts them into her kaleidoscope, and then forces the helpless and unresisting soul to gaze at the sometimes gorgeous and bewitching, sometimes hideous and appalling, scenery she has thus created. Who can wonder if, amidst the interminable combinations thus produced, a little truth should sometimes mingle? or if, in the endless wheelings of the phantasmagoria, they should occasionally assume the attitude of the future, as well as of the past? Nay, which of us, whose mental vision is bounded to each successive point of our own existence, shall venture to assert, that these combinations are not at times *This most remarkable narrative, from the pen of a lady whose contributions have enriched several periodicals, was published some years ago, and, we have reason to believe, nas, in several instances, been blessed to the awakening of hardened sceptics. About ninety years ago, there was in Glasgow a club of gentlemen of the first rank in that city, for the meetings of which card-playing was the ostensible cause and. purpose; but the members of which were distinguished by such a fearless and boundless excess of profligacy, especially in the orgies of this Club, as to obtain for it the cognomen of "The Hell Club." They gloried in the name they had given or acquired for themselves, and nothing that the most unrestrained licentiousness could do to merit it was left untried. Whether the aggregate of vice be greater or less in the present age than in the one gone by, I am not prepared to decide; but of this I am certain, that among the upper and middle ranks of society, it is forced to wear a more decorous disguise; for assuredly, in this our day, habitual drunkenness and shameless license dare not prank themselves forth in the eyes of all beholders, as if they thought they derived a glorious distinction from conduct too degrading for the brute creation. Still less would such men be now unhesitatingly received into the best society-that of cultivated, refined, and virtuous women-as if they were indeed the "fine fellows" they chose to call themselves. Perhaps it may be that vices those diseases of the soul-run a round, like the diseases of the body; and some rage with virulence in one age or period, and die away only to give place to others that succeed to their devastating prevalence and energy. But I have wandered from the Club. Besides their nightly or weekly meetings, they held a grand annual Saturnalia, at which each member endeavoured to "outdo all his former outdoings" in the united forms of drunkenness, blasphemy, and unbridled license. Of all who shone on these occasions, none shone half so brilliant as Archibald Boyle. But, alas! the light that dazzled in him was not 66 light from heaven," but from that dread abode which gave name and energy to the vile association destined to prove his ruin-ruin for time and eternity! Archibald Boyle had been at one time a youth of the richest promise-possessed of the ners. most dazzling talents and most fascinating manNo acquirement was too high for his ability; but, unfortunately, there was none too low for his ambition! Educated by a fond, foolishly indulgent mother, he too early met in society with members of the "Hell Club." His elegance, wit, unbounded gaiete de cœur, and versatility of talent, united to the gifts of fortune, made him a most desirable victim to them; and a victim and a slave, glorying in his bondage, he very quickly became. Long ere he could count twenty-five as his years, he was one of the most accomplished blackguards it could number on its lists; even his very talentsthose glorious gifts of God--but served to endow him with the power of being more exquisitely wicked! What to him were heaven, hell, or eternity? Words, mere words, that to him served no purpose, but to point his blasphemous wit, or nerve his execrations! What glory to him, the immortal spirit! was there, equal to that of hearing himself pronounced "the very life of the Club?" Alas! there was none; for the moment the immortal spirit so far forgets the Giver of its immortality as to plunge headlong into the midnight of vice, its moral vision becomes so distorted, that its deepest degradation is hailed as its utmost glory, even as the wretched lunatic devours the most revolting filth, and calls it a delicacy! terious, half-seen guide, was still before! Ago nized, by he knew not what, of indescribable horror and awe, Boyle again furiously spurred the gallant horse. It fiercely reared and plunged-he lost his seat, and expected at the moment to feel himself dashed to the earth. But not so; for he continued to fall-fall-fall it appeared to himself with an ever accelerat ing velocity. At length, this appalling rapidity of motion abated, and to his amazement and horror, he perceived that his mysterious attendant was close by his side. Where," he exclaimed, with the frantic energy of despair, "where are you taking me-where am Iwhere am I going?" "To hell," replied the same iron voice, and from the depths below, sullen interminable echoes repeated the sound so familiar to his lips, so stunning now to his scared and conscience-smitten ear. 66 "To hell," onward, onward, they hurried in darkness, rendered more horribly dark by the conscious presence of his spectral conductor. At length, a glimmering light appeared in the distance, and soon increased to a blaze; but, as they approached it, instead of the hideously discordant groans and yells he expected to hear, his ears were assailed with every imaginable sound of music, mirth, and jollity. They soon reached an arched entrance, of such stupendous magnificence and beauty, that all the grandeur of this world seemed in comparison even as the frail and dingy labours of the poor earth-born mole. Within it, what a scene! No amusement, no employment or pursuit of man, is there to be found on earth, which was not going on there with a vehemence which excited his unutterable wonder. Yet, strange to say, while all within-all in the empire of that heart "out of which are the issues of life" was thus festering in corruption, he retained all his very remarkable beauty of face and person, all his external elegance and fascination of manner; and more extraordinary still, continued an acknowledged favourite in the fairest and purest female society of the day. There the young and lovely still swam in the One night, or morning, on retiring to sleep, giddy mazes of the midnight dance. There the after returning from one of those annual meet-bounding steed still bore his far more brutal ings of the Club, to which I have already alluded, Boyle dreamt that, mounted as usual upon his famous black horse, he was still riding towards his own house-then a country seat embowered by ancient trees, and situated upon a hill now built over by the most fashionable part of Glasgow-and that he was suddenly accosted by some one, whose personal appearance the gloom of night prevented his more than indistinctly discerning, but who, seizing the reins, said, in a voice apparently accustomed to command, " You must go with me." "And who are you?" exclaimed Boyle, with a volley of blasphemous execrations, while he struggled o disengage his reins from the intruder's grasp; That you will see by-and-by," replied the same He at length perceived that he was sur oice, in a cold sneering tone, that thrilled his rounded by those whom he had known on earth, ery heart stream. Boyle plunged the spurs' and knew to have been long dead, and each owels deep into the panting sides of his hitherto one of them he saw pursuing the employment nfoiled and unfailing steed. The noble animal or object that had engrossed their time here eared, staggered, and then suddenly darted-time lent them to prepare for a far different orward with a speed that nearly deprived his rider of breath and sensation; but in vain, in vain! fleeter than the wind he flew the mys and senseless rider through the excitements of the goaded race. There the intemperate still drawled, over the midnight bowl, the wanton song or maudlin blasphemy. There toiled the slaves of Mammon, and, grinding their bitter task of seeking THROUGH ETERNITY for useless gold! confessed that their insatiate thirst of it on earth had indeed been but the apprenticeship of hell! And there the gambler plied his endless game: while, as if in utter mockery of their unremitting toil, there sparkled and blazed around such a flood of gem-like light, and all that we, poor children of the dust, call magnincence, as for a time quite dazzled and confounded his senses. scene! Suddenly observing that his unearthly conductor had disappeared, he felt so relieved by THE PROFLIGATE'S DREAM. his absence, that he ventured to address his former friend, Mrs D, whom he saw sitting, as was her wont on earth, absorbed at loo. "Ha, Mrs D! delighted to see you; d'ye know a fellow told me to-night he was bringing me to hell!-ha, ha! If this be hell, I can only say it is the most devilish pleasant place I ever was in-ha, ha! Come now, my good Mrs ¦ D—, for auld langsyne, do just stop from your game for a moment, rest, and "Chaperon me through the pleasures of hell," the scoffer would have said; but with a shriek that seemed to cleave through his very soul, she exclaimed, "REST! there is No rest in hell!" and from interminable vaults, voices as of many thunders prolonged and repeated the awful, the heart-withering sound, "THERE IS NO REST IN HELL!" She hastily unclasped the vest of her gorgeous robe, and displayed to his scared and shuddering eye, a coil of fiery living snakes-" the worm that never dies" the worm of enry, spite, and malignity towards our fellow-men-wreathing, darting, stinging, in her bosom; the others followed her example, and in every bosom there was a hell-devised punishment. In some he saw bare and throbbing hearts, on which distilled slow drops, as it were, of fiery molten metal, under which, consuming, yet ever unconsumed, they writhed, and palpitated in all the impotence of helpless, hopeless agony. And every scalding drop was a tear of hopeless anguish, wrung by selfish, heartless villany, from the eye of injured innocence on earth. In every bosom he saw that which we have no language to describe-no ideas horrid enough even to conceive; for in all he saw the fullgrown fruit of the fiend-sown seed of evil passions, voluntarily nourished in the human soul, during its mortal pilgrimage here; and in all he saw them lashed and maddened by the serpent-armed hand " Of Despair: For hell were not hell If Hope had ever entered there!" And they laughed, for they had laughed on earth at all there is of good and holy. And they sang-profane and blasphemous songs sang they for they had often done so on earth, at the very hour God claims as his own-the still and midnight hour! And he who walked among them in a mortal frame of flesh and blood, felt how inexpressibly more horrible such sounds could be than ever was the wildest shriek of agony! "These are the pleasures of hell," again assailed his ear, in the same terrific and apparently interminable roll of unearthly sound. He rushed away; but as he fled, he saw those whom he knew to have been dead for thousands of years still employed as they had been on earth, toiling through their eternity of sin; their choice on earth became their doom in hell! He saw Maxwell, the former companion of 137 his own boyish profligacy, mounted on a steed fleeter than any of earthly mould, still pursuing the headlong chace. "Stop, Harry! stop, speak to me! O rest one moment!" Scarce had the words been breathed from his faltering lips, when again his terror-stricken ear was stunned with the same wild yell of agony, re-echoed by ten thousand thousand voices: "THERE IS NO REST IN HELL!" He tried to shut his eyes; he found he could not. He threw himself down, but the pavement of hell, as with a living and instinctive movement, rejected him from its surface; and, forced upon his feet, he found himself compelled to gaze with still increasing intensity of horror at the ever-changing, yet ever-steady torrent of eternal torment. And this was hell! — the scoffer's jest-the byword of the profligate! All at once he perceived that his unearthly conductor was once more by his side. "Take me," shrieked Boyle, “take me from this place; by the living God, whose name I have so often outraged, I adjure thee, take me from this place!" "Canst thou still name his name?" said the fiend, with a hideous sneer; "go then; but— in a year and a day, we meet, to part no more!" Boyle awoke; and he felt as if the last words of the fiend were traced in letters of living fire upon his heart and brain. Unable, from actual bodily ailment, to leave his bed for several days, the horrid vision had full time to take effect upon his mind; and many were the pangs of tardy remorse and ill-defined terror that beset his vice-stained soul, as he lay in darkness and seclusion, to him so very unusual. He resolved, utterly and for ever, to forsake "The Club." Above all, he determined that nothing on earth should tempt him to join the next annual Saturnalia. The companions of his licentiousness soon flocked around him; and finding that his deep dejection of mind did not disappear with his bodily ailments, and that it. arose from some cause which disinclined him from seeking or enjoying their accustomed orgies, they became alarmed with the idea of losing "the life of the Club," and they bound themselves by an oath never to desist till they had discovered what was the matter with him, and cured him of playing the Methodist; for their alarm as to losing "the life of the Club" had been wrought up to the highest pitch, by one of their number declaring that, on unexpectedly entering Boyle's room, he detected him in the act of hastily hiding a book, which he actually believed was the Bible! Alas! alas! had poor Boyle possessed sufficient true moral courage, and dignity of mind, not to have hidden the Bible, or whatever other book he chose to read, how different might have been the result! After a time, one of his compeers,more deeply cunning than the rest, bethought himself |
