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VOL. 11.
Camnumiiatmns.
Bro. Wm. L. Bkkbe :—lf being almost entirely
engrosser! in secular concerns, anxious to get the
papers to read with great delight the movements
of our army, especially, if they should be victo
rious, or to speculate upon the probable duration
and intensity of the war, with but little or no
thought about religion ; no desire to engage in
conversation upon that once delightful theme, are
good leasons why I should not write an article
for your disposal, then I am sure I ought to be ex
cused.
But should we only enter upon the discharge of
our duty when we fe l like it? Are our feelings
the standard by which we are to be governed?
Suppose our pastor, whom we have called to serve
us, and who has promised, to the best of his abil
ity to do so, should, on our meeting days, feel more
like reading war news, and attending to his farm,
than complying with his agreement to the church,
and so remain at home until he feels that he can
preach to the edification of the church, would that
be a reasonable excuse ? Would not the brethren,
though cold as Iceland theJisJves, and fuu oi eve
rything but rel gion, be apt to quote, “Preach the
word ; be instant in season and out of season; re
prove, rebuke, exhort with all long-sufferiDg and
doctrine.” His coldness and barrenness of mind,
with all the flesh that he carries into the pulpit,
does not excuse the poor minister, but preach he
must, (or try at least,) while his brethren are of
ten in mind, though present in body, with the ar
ixjy on the Potomac, or in their fields* or planning
some improvement on their farms, or, it may be,
are watching some opportunity for comment and
criticism.
If private members only engaged in prayer when
they felt like -f, there would be but little
praying done, though there might be some forms
gone through with. But if we were to hear a
brother express that he al ways ‘felt like entering
into the service of God, that he was always delight
ad in that service, we could not have confidence in
fcim, because David, and Paul particularly, and
many of the other prophets and apostles speak of
limes, in which their souls were bowing within
them —times in which they entered with fear and
trembling into the worship of God, doubting
whether they were truly the children of God or not.
Ifone but those who have been changed can expe
rience these trials; the sinner, in the love and
practice of sin, has but one mind or desire, and
that is, to sin, and to be let alone in sin, while the
ebrislian has two minds, the one a fleshly mind,
DEVOTED TO THE SERVICE OF THE OLD SCHOOL BAPTISTS.
“ obs eu Mivii aib eaa umsa.”
COVINGTON, NEWTON CO., GA., JANUARY 1, 1862.
which is averse to all that is good, and the other
a spiritual, which hates and abhors sin in himself,
and for itself. As the one or the other gets the
ascendancy, so we act; if the fleshly, it is pleased,
and we must do its bidding, however mortifying to
the spiritual; our communion, for the time being,
with God is shut out; devotion, if attempted,
proves a task; we feel that we are in chains and
slavery, and cannot break the fetters nor proceed,
being bound. We try to assert our rights, estab
lish our claims to our heavenly inheritance, but our
witnesses are rejected, or their testimony disre
garded, and we are again shut up in prison under
bondage. The flesh is inexorable and exacting,
and unless our heavenly Father opens the prison
doors, breaks off our fetters, and leads us out into
the perfect law of liberty; there we must remain.
But it is not His will that the old man with his
deeds should have the continued supremacy. He
is the elder, it is true, but the order of nature is ie
versed in his case, and he must or shall serve the
younger. While the younger, or new man governs
all is joy and peace ; sighing and sorrow have fled
away ; we have sweet communion with God ; we
love to contemplate his character and perfections ;
there is quiet and rest to o• David Mrould
say, in this frame of mind, “ Bless the Lord O my
soul, and all that is within me bless his holy
name.” The new man is speaking and praising
God ; these are favorite expressions of his. But
when the old man has the ascendancy, David says,
“I am like a pelican of the wilderness; lam like
an owl of the desert.”
Let us briefly examine what David means by
these expressions. The pelican and the owl, by
the law of Moses, are both unclean birds. In this
they represent what the Christian often feels within,
though nothing that God has cleansed, now that
Christ has broken down the middle wall of parti
tion, is to be called commou or unclean. <► Though
the Christian has been washed in the blood ofOhiist
so that God beholds in him no spot of uncleanness,
for the reason that there is aone in Christ his Head,
he experiences day by day, that in him—that is in
his flesh —tlere is no good thing —that he is vile
aud unclean throughout —all wounds and bruises
that have not been bound up nor mollified —he is
disgusting and loathsome to himself. He has tried
time and again to wash out his guilty stains, to
make himself clean; but after ail his ablutions,
when he looks into the law of God, he sees there
written —Unclean, unclean, lie does not fee! wor
thy to associate with Christians; they are clean ;
be is fit only to be cast out. The corruption and
deformity of the heart was felt by the Psalmist, no
doubt, when he uttered these sentiments. The
pelican and owl both feed on flesh, and are great
gluttons. The former lives on flesh, and generally
has biß abode near the water, if anything so slug
gish and indolent can be said to abide. He is a
very peusive and melancholy fowl, silting, for
hours at a time, on some tall tree. David might
iiave alluded to this trait when he compared him
se’f to it; for be seems to have been in a very low
and disconsolate mood ; his mind appears to have
bem very gloomy and dejected, to be alone, brood
ing over the sinfulness and ingratitude of his heart.
The pelican is not a fowl of song; like it, David, at
this time had no song of praise and adoration to
God. In view of the hidings of His countenance
in Babylon, in slavery, with bis harp on the wil
low, he could not sing one of the songs of Zion. It
is impossible forlhe child of God to sing and make
melody in his heart, without the love and presence
of God be manifested in his heart; he may sing,
but it is to him but a sounding brass and a tink
ling cymbal. David might have bad in view the
awkward and ungainly appearance of the pelican,
or its great slolhfuluess and aversion to move or
act, when he likened, himself to that fowl. There
is in the Christian, in his flesh at least, a certain
torpidity ard let hargy .in lb? things of God, so
that it is often a task to drag bis body to the house
of God, and a greater task to engage in Lis wor
ship. But I suppose the idea most promineut in
David’s mind, when he compared himself to a peli
can in the wilderness, was, that the wilderness af
forded no sustenance to a fowl that fed on fish ;
and hence, remaining in the desert, he must have
perished. The child of God feels and knows that
there is nothing pertaining to this earth that can
feed or sustain his renewed part; he feels that this
world is to him a wilderness of woe. This world
is not his home ; the food that feeds his soul is
manna from heaven, and without this his strength
fails him, and he feeL that be must die. The water
that queruchcs his thirst is living water; having
taken one draught of this, all else seems flat and
insipid. Hence he longs and sighs for home, its
comforts and its enjoyments —a land of pure de
lights, a land of perfect bliss, where the church tri
umphant is—where assembly of the first born are,
to an innumerable company of tLe saints —to
Mount Zion, the city of our God, whither for us,
the Captain of our salvation has entered. Here we
mav observe the works of creation ; and this to an
enlightened mind, is food for reflection, themes for
thought; yet these are all temporal, and must per
ish with ti e usage thereof, and are things that are
seen with mortal vision. But this is far from sat
fying one who has feasted his eves ou things which
are not seen only by the internal eye. The pelican
NO, 19