1853 Archive

Pg. 310

¶ 1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 0 22 THE SPOILED CHILD. [310

¶ 2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 0 the elder on the other; his meek and humble wife, with her three pretty little children, casting anxious and sorrowful looks at their father, placed themselves over against us. A deep and painful silence prevailed for some minutes. Every thing about the chamber, and about the house, on which the eye could rest, exhibited tokens of desolation and wretchedness. This was the inheritance of a SPOILED CHILD—the house of a drunkard and infidel!

¶ 3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 0 “Will you, Sir, bring me your father’s Bible?” A smile, not of pleasure, but that of the scorner, played over his face; nevertheless, he rose and brought it out, covered with dust and cobwebs.

¶ 4 Leave a comment on paragraph 4 0 This led me to notice the very different use which the good old man, his father, made of that book, and the use which all good men would make of it. He smiled contemptuously, but said nothing, for his wife cast a beseeching look on him, tempered with her winning sweetness, rendered more touching by her unaffected sorrow.

¶ 5 Leave a comment on paragraph 5 0 It was a long visit we paid him; and we endeavored, by the help of divine grace, to improve our time. We set before him, after reading the nineteenth psalm, a brief outline of the authenticity and divinity of the Holy Scriptures; and begged respectfully his attention to it. “Ah! Sir, this points out to you the good old way in which your fathers walked, and found rest and happiness: I appeal to your own experience if you have ever tasted one drop of happiness or peace in your wanderings from these ways.” He turned away from the discussion with a sally of ridicule; yet in that sarcastic laugh a child might have seen that he felt miserable in his soul. His wit had pierced his own conscience.

¶ 6 Leave a comment on paragraph 6 0 We turned to another subject—the nature and the worth of the immortal soul. “O let the son of your father re- member the words of Him whose lips never spoke falsehood, even Him whose lips, as the Lord God of Hosts liveth, will ere long judge you at his tribunal! O hear his words, “What is a man profited, though he should gain the whole world, and lose his Own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his Soul?” O what will you feel—what will you say—what will you do, when you are m the last awful conflict—in the act of leaving this world!—and soon