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THE

GENERAL BAPTIST MAGAZINE.

JANUARY, 1871.

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STARTING AGAIN.

GOD, our Heavenly Father, begins this morning another of the smaller cycles of His gracious and merciful providence. A new year is started on its course by the "right hand of the Most High." "In the beginning" God set lights in the firmament of heaven to divide the day from the night, and said, "Let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years.' Still those lights shine. Still the seasons, in their various beauty and fruitfulness, come and go. Still the faithful God keeps the years rolling on. And by the new "sign" that greets us this winter morn He speaks to the hearts of His sons and daughters once more; bids them be of good courage, and hope in Him; tells them to cast out the despondency that springs from defeat, the unbelief that thrives on failure, the terrible unreality that poisons the spiritual nature to its core; and summons them to enter upon the work of life with freshened faith in Him, and a more vivid sight of His loving Face. He, the Lord of all our time, now 66 sets new time upon our score" that we may fill it, moment by moment, with the "work of faith, the labour of love, and the patience of hope."

He

VOL. LXXIII.-NEW SERIES, No. 13.

would have us re-baptized into the Holy Ghost and fire, that with new faith, wisdom, and zeal, we may more courageously exalt our Saviour, more tenderly reclaim the erring, more sympathizingly comfort the suffering, more self-denyingly seek and save the lost; and thereby, as we travel along our years to the end of all our labours, we may be gladdened and inspired by the assurance that our Master and Judge is, in effect, saying to us at each successive year and day, "Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."

Starting again is no new thing under the sun. New! Nay it is the universal experience. Stern Winter has not hushed its wild howlings before the sweet scented violets fill the country lanes with their fragrance, and the delicate snowdrops herald the springing up of the imprisoned forces of vegetation. Flowers take their annual rest, and then visit us again as bright and as beautiful as ever. Out from yonder great and wide sea tons upon tons of water, uplifted by the sun, are carried in the hands of fleet-winged messengers to the loftiest mountain heights, from whence descending

in a thousand silver streamlets they seek, along devious river-paths, their common home in the "grand old ocean," and then once more set out on their "everlasting circle" of beneficence. Planets have their orbits, and move as by unerring clock-work in their appointed places, and complete, to a second of time, their prescribed journey through the heavens. One generation of men passeth away and another cometh. Sires give place to sons. Families

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continue their life and vigour for ages, within sight of the " narrow cells" where "the rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep." Man, corrupted, broken up, and destroyed by sin, starts again, after the deluge, not, this time, from the innocence of Eden," but from the patient, heroic, and victorious life of the preacher of righteousness. Noah, however, is drawn away of his own lust and enticed, and men soon sink to a degradation as hopeless as that before the flood. But the exhaustless love of God makes Abram His chosen; and the father of the faithful is a new fountain of hope for man. With wondrous forbearance the Lord leads and preserves the Jews until at length Shiloh is come; and then humanity, prepared by long and painful experience of its weakness, and with a keen sense of utter incapacity to save itself, starts anew in the God-man, possessed of a promise which cannot be broken. These circling years are indeed in perfect keeping with circling seasons, circling seas, circling stars, and the circling experiences of men and nations. All God's works complete their rounds, and then start again.

But God's ways are not as our ways. The law of the Lord is perfect, and so is His work. He never starts again because of error or mistake. Each result of the labour of His hands is, in its place and time, entire, wanting nothing, though when we examine it, it may be only

in that stage of perfectness that leads to the richest and fullest perfection. The plant whose green shoot is seen sprouting through the brown earth is as perfect then as when it has grown to leaf and blossom, and from blossom to ripened fruit. The stream is as perfect up among the snow-capped hills as when with a full-river flow it leaps into the deep sea. The child is not

so mature as his father, but viewed as a child he is as perfect. Even that sad exception to the universal harmony presented in ourselves seems, by contrast, to exhibit more distinctly the faultless skill and marvellous love of the Great Creator. The Heavenly Potter seated at the wheel of Providence patiently picks up the shattered fragments of our human nature, not once or twice, but many times, and putting them together again with fire from heaven, at last moulds them into a vessel fit for noblest uses; so that even the efforts of man may, by His grace, ultimately become nothing more than an orderly and regular development of the fulness of the life of God. But we are far from this yet. At present we are like children learning to walk. We start again after many failures, and with much self-correction, shame, and rebuke, yet withal believing, that like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him, and that He will lay underneath and round about us His everlasting arms. We know that if any man sin we have an advocate with the Father, and that if we walk in the light, if we are ever travelling up to the purity of God, seeking to live within the range of its influence, then the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth us from all sin; and so we set out again with a conscience unburdened and a heart full of peace and joy. Here, then, is our true starting place. We ended the year with hope in God's mercy. We must begin it communing with

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