haps by a slave scene in
Morocco, or the last adieus between a Maccabaean mother, and her noble
children rushing on duteous death; or the dangers of a son, during the
Reign of Terror, protecting his proscribed parents; or allusive to the
case of many razed and fired homes in the Irish rebellion. The fourth,
necessarily a tale of overwhelming calamity ultimately triumphant, "My
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"--the confidence of _my_ God
still, even in His recognised judgments trusted in as merciful: the
history of many an unrecorded Job; a parent bereaved of his fair dear
children; an aged merchant beggared by the roguery of others, and his
very name blamelessly dishonoured; the extremity of a martyr's
sufferings; or some hunted soul's temptation. The fifth, "I thirst;"
which might be commented on, either morally only, as referring to a
thirst after religion, virtue, and knowledge--or physically also, in
some story of well-endured miseries at sea on a wrecking craft; or of
Christian resignation even to the horrible death of drought among the
torrid sands of Africa; or some noble act, like that of Sir Philip
Sidney on the battle-field, or David's libation of that desired draught
from the well of Bethlehem. I need not remark that all these sayings
might primarily be applied to their Good Utterer, if it seemed more
advisable to shape the publication into seven sermons: but this, it will
at once be perceived, is not the present object; the word "sermons" has
to most men a repulsive sound, and a tale, similar in disguised motive,
may win, where an orderly discourse might unhappily repel: a teacher's
best influences are the indirect: like the conquering troops at
Culloden, his charge will be oblique; his weapon will strike the
unguarded flank, and not the opposing target. The sixth, "It is
finished;" perhaps, not only as a fact on the true, the necessary value
of the Christian scheme of redemption being so completed; but, more
generally, to display the evils and dangers of leaving mental,
spiritual, or even worldly good designs unfinished: a tale of natural
procrastination conquered, difficulties overcome, prejudices broken
down, and gigantic good effected: a Russian Peter, a literary Johnson, a
missionary Neff, a Wesley, or a Henry Martyn. The seventh, descanting
upon noble patience, and agonies vanquished by faith, the death and
glorious expectance of a martyr, the end of one of Fox's heroes;
"Father, into Thy hands