The meeting was presided over by | whom were Masters Charles and Thomas Judge Payne. After singing and prayer addresses were delivered by the Revds. R. Seddon, and G. W. McCree ; Messrs. Shirley, Haynes, and Selway. The speeches were most appropriate; and it was delightful to see the attention manifested by the juveniles. Some recitations were then delivered by the male members of the Band of Hope, amongst Spurgeon. The former recited " Onward and Upward," and the latter, “Little Deeds of Kindness." They were delivered in a clear and admirable manner, and were audible to all. The usual votes having been accorded, the Rev. J. H. Wilson concluded the proceedings with earnest prayer. The meeting closed about nine o'clock. Pastor's College, Metropolitan Tabernacle. PRESIDENT-C. H. SPURGEON.—NUMBER OF STUDENTS, 93. Amount required for Students during the year, about £5,000; the rest will be devoted to building Places of Worship. Statement of Receipts from December 20th, 1865, to January 19th, 1866. £ s. d. T. N... 026 1 0 0 200 20 0 0 Mrs. Bickmore's Quarterly Subscription 2 00 Mr. Spurgeon, Maldon Mr. J. Inglis A Friend, Walthamstow W. T., Birmingham Mr. Dransfield The Misses Dransfield A Young Friend Elizabeth Stacey Mr. R. R. Calvert 050 500 The Baptist Church, Aylsham S. W. L. Mrs. Smith Mr. C. W. Roberts. Redruth Friends at Glossop.. Amy £ s. d. 5 0 0 A Friend Mr. Sherrin 330 Mrs. Lewis Mr. W. Salmond, jun. Mr. Flood Mrs. Biggs 1 0 0 1 1 0 Deeds, not Words. Edinburgh. 1 0 0 Miss Barker .. 0 5 6 0 0 44 0 Mrs. G. 0 0 A Friend, per Mr. J. C. Wilkes.. 0 0 Mr. D. Seary 0 0 Mr. Harrison, Taxworth.. Mr. S. Goodhead A Friend, Southampton Mr. A. Tessier Mr. M. Fulks 1 0 0 Mr. Maddox.. 0 10 0 1 0 0 A. V., Buckingham 0 12 0 Mr. C. Webb A Friend A Friend, Warrington Mr. R. A. Bellman.. 10 0 0 100 050 Subscriptions will be thankfully received by C. H. Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington. Miss Hayward 1 Mrs. Best, Helston.. THE SWORD AND THE TROWEL. MARCH, 1866. Bells for the Borses. "In that day shall there be upon the bells of the horses, Holiness unto the Lord." Zechariah xiv. 20. ELLS on "BE the horses! Unnecessary! Very unnecessary, indeed," says my neighbour, Dr. Dull; "very needless, trivial, and absurd. Horses do not derive a particle of strength from wearing a set of jingling nuisances which can be of no possible service, and only spoil the quiet, so sweet to melancholy." Well, well, most judicious doctor, we will not dispute with you, for it is very much a matter of taste, and therefore, not to be quarrelled over; as saith the old rule, De gustibus non est disputandum. You delight in comfortable misery, and I delight in overflowing joy. Your portion is quite safe H from my envy, and if you do not care for mine, you have only to let me enjoy it, and we shall agree right well. Nevertheless, I am most decidedly for bells as well as horses, for the bells ring in my ears, and do not jingle on my tympanum as they do on yours. I hear their sweet silvery notes with far too much satisfaction to think them a nuisance, or to wish to silence their busy tongues. You shall do as you please with your hacks; I have an appointment under the great King, and I am bound to see to it that the royal horses shall not lack for bells. So, here, according to my ability, I seek to hang his Majesty's own bells about the necks of those goodly steeds who draw his chariot. Cheerfulness, that compound of many excellencies, comparable unto "the powders of the merchant," may scarcely claim to be called a virtue; but it is the friend and helper of all good graces, and the absence of it is certainly a vice. If cheerfulness be not health, assuredly melancholy is disease. Practically, cheerfulness occupies a very high position, and without it the Christian labourer is destitute of a very considerable element of strength. All wise workers for the Lord Jesus desire to preserve their tools in the best condition; their common sense teaches them that the tool-chest within themselves must not be left uncared for, since holy working with depressed spirits and gloomy views is as difficult as for the artist to paint with worn-out brushes, or the sculptor to fashion his marble with broken chisels. Cheerfulness sharpens the edge, and removes the rust from the mind. A joyous heart supplies oil to our inward machinery, and makes the whole of our powers work with ease and efficiency; hence it is of the utmost importance that we maintain a contented, cheerful, genial disposition. The longer I am engaged in my Master's service, the more am I confident that the joy of the Lord is and must be our strength, and that discontent and moroseness are fatal to usefulness. With all my heart would I say to my fellow-servants, "rejoice in the Lord always," not only for your own sakes, but for the sake of the work which is so dear to you. Whoever may advocate dreary dulness, I cannot and dare not do other than impeach it as an enemy of true religion. The deadening gloom and murderous chilliness of certain religionists is guilty of the blood of souls, and is to be avoided as men shun the death-damps of malarious swamps. The Puritans were never accused of too much hilarity, but they were, as a rule, happy men; and one of them shall speak from the grave in support of the duty which I am now urging upon you. Ho, Master Thomas Watson, let us hear thy voice from thy sepulchre! These are the words which my ear drinks in from him who discoursed so sweetly upon "Divine Contentment:" "Cheerfulness honours religion; it proclaims to the world that we serve a good Master; cheerfulness is a friend to grace; it puts the heart in tune to serve God. Uncheerful Christians, like the spies, bring an evil report on the good land; others suspect there is something unpleasant in religion, that they who profess it hang their harps upon the willows, and walk so dejectedly. Be serious, yet cheerful. Rejoice in the Lord alway." Well said, Master Watson, may we all have grace to practise thy good counsel! Among professed Christians there lurks an undefined and unexpressed idea, that cheerfulness, if not absolutely sinful in itself, is very dangerous, and to be kept like gunpowder in small quantities only, and always under lock and key, for fear of mischief. Mr. Timbs might have included in his list of "Popular Errors," the tradition that true piety lives at the sign of the long face, and he might have added to his "Things not generally known," the fact that holiness and happiness are blood relations. I have remarked that many apparently good people put certain lively and sparkling Saxon words under a ban, because of their expressive joyousness; as for instance, that innocent and even scriptural word, "merry." Sundry of my friends were just going to wish me "A Merry Christmas," but they suddenly stopped, like a spiritless huntsman at a five-barred gate, and backed out of it. They even looked solemnly penitent, as if they had committed the beginning of a sin, and felt that their feet had well nigh slipped. I looked them full in the face, and said, "Why don't you out with it? Why should I not be merry at Christmas, and all the year round beside?" God says of himself as the great Father, and of his holy angels as his friends and neighbours, "It was meet that we should make merry and be glad, for this thy brother was dead and is alive again." "They began to be merry," is the Holy Ghost's own expression of Christian joy over converted sinners, and if you will use it in a holy sense, there is not a more gracious and blessed word in all our language than that word "merry.” We do not seek worldly merriment, but we do love such holy mirth as James alludes to, when he says, "Is any merry? let him sing psalms," James v. 13. Solomon sent away the people at the opening of the temple "glad and merry in heart, for all the goodness that the Lord had shewed unto David, and to Solomon, and to Israel his people, 2 Chronicles vii. 10; and he tells us that "a merry heart doeth good like a medicine," Proverbs xvii. 22. I decline, therefore, to be robbed of such a rich, bell-ringing, festive word as that "merry," which so shocks a spurious propriety. I have heard of being merry and wise, and I believe in being merry and holy. The bells must be holiness unto the Lord, but they must be bells, and we cannot afford to have them melted down and turned into coffin-plates. Working Christians should, as far as possible, be cheerful of countenance, happy in manner, and merry in heart; and there are several reasons why I think so. They should be happy, BECAUSE THEY SERVE A HAPPY GOD. It enters into the essential idea of God that he is superlatively blessed. We cannot conceive of a God who should be infinitely miserable. Our written rule and guide speaks of him whom we adore as "God over all, blessed for ever." Good Mr. Knibb used to employ, instead of the term "the blessed God," what, I believe, is an equally accurate translation, "the happy God." As it is true that "God is love," so is it equally true that God is happiness. Now it would be an exceedingly strange thing if, in proportion as we became like a happy God, we grew more and more miserable. It would be a singular and unaccountable thing indeed if, by acting like the Giver of all good, whose bliss is perfect, we should increase in wretchedness. The livery of kings should be bright and lavish with gold lace, and the livery of the King of kings, the Lord of blessedness, must not be of sombre hue. If a black ray should cry, "I come from the sun," who would believe it? and who will credit our credentials as coming from heaven if we look like souls fore-doomed to hell? Congruity is to be studied everywhere, and it seems not meet that the ambassadors of the Prince of light should wear a perpetual shadow over their faces. The priests of old were not to sully themselves with sorrow when they performed their functions, and saints who are of a higher priesthood should show forth delight in their approaches to their God. Angels sing, and why not God's other servants who are a little lower and yet far higher? David danced before the ark, which was but a symbol of Divinity; what ails us that our heart so seldom dances before the Lord himself? The old creation has its sunshine and flowers; its lowing herds and bleating flocks; its heaven-mounting larks and warbling nightingales; its rivers laughing, and its seas clapping hands; is the new creation of grace to render less happy worship to God our exceeding joy? Nay, rather let us come into his presence with thanksgiving, and show ourselves glad in him with psalms. Most of the English versions alter the Old Hundredth Psalm into "Him serve with fear;" but for my part, by God's grace, I mean to sing it as it used to be, and still is sung in Scotland "All people that on earth do dwell, Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice, Him serve WITH MIRTH, his praise forth tell, I know you will tell me that the gold must be thrust into the fire, that believers must pass through much tribulation. I answer, Truly it must be so, but when the gold knows why and wherefore it is in the fire, when it understands who placed it there, who watches it while amid the coals, who is sworn to bring it out unhurt, and in what matchless purity it will soon appear, the gold, if it be gold indeed, will thank the Refiner for putting it into the crucible, and will find a sweet satisfaction even in the flames. "And not only so, but we glory in tribulation also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope." "Let the saints be joyful in glory; let them sing aloud upon their beds." God himself in our worst condition is an unfailing source of joy. "A Deity believed is joy begun; Each branch of piety delight inspires." Heaven is happiness, and it is scarcely conceivable that those who possess the "earnest of the inheritance," can find that " earnest " to be unÎike the "inheritance" itself. "An earnest" is a part of the possession; the earnest of heaven must, surely, be joyful and blissful like heaven, of which it is the foretaste. Furthermore, (as preachers say,) IS NOT THE GOSPEL CALCULATED TO MAKE MEN HAPPY WHEN IT IS REALLY UNDERSTOOD, BELIEVED, AND ENJOYED? You believe that Jesus Christ is man in our nature; that the Word was made flesh. Did not this grand truth set all heaven on a blaze with splendour on the night of the nativity, while angels chanted midnight chorales; and should it not also set your heart a-glow with sacred joy every night and every day, while all your powers and passions sing with gratitude? You believe that Jesus died for sinners. The doctrine of the atone |