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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