Sunday at Home.

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 28, 14 October 1893, Page 7

Sunday at Home.

RUBBISH. (By Dr. Thain Davidson in the Quiver.) ** There is mucli rubbish,." —Neb. IV., 10. When God put Adam in Eden He said nothing to him about clearing away the weeds and nettles; there was no Dutch hoe put into his hand, for the soil was clean, and the first gardener’s instructions were simply to “ dress the garden, and keep it.” It is very different work now. Everywhere weeds and noxious growths of all kinds prevail; and, before a man can sow his seeds, and plant his flowers, there is a deal of stiff and unattractive labour in preparing the ground for them. This preparatory work may not make any show ; it may call forth little admiration and applause , but it is essential. A friend once called upon Michael Angelo in his studio whilst he was at work upon a statue. Some weeks after, he called again, and found the great sculptor still engaged on the same marble figure. “ Why, you have done nothing to this statue since I called some weeks ago! ” “ Oh, yes,” replied the incomparable genius, “ I have. I have removed the blemish from that limb, and taken away the hard expression from that eye, and corrected the defect in that muscle.” Well, this was only neg-ative work, but it was essential to a successful result. “ There is much rubbish” of conceits and prejudices, and misconceptions and superstitions, and delusions of every sort, in the case of most of us, to be cleared away, at the very commencement of our spiritual education. The mind has to be liberated from many a prepossession. Some of us have drunk in from our earliest da} r s the most erroneous conceptions. It has been our trouble from boyhood that we have had to unlearn a good many notions which have taken such a hold upon us that they warp otir judgment to this very hour. Even Luther bitterly complained that from his childhood he had been trained to

regard Jesus Christ as a severe and angry Judge, so that he positively trembled at the mention of His name. Some impressions and opinions, though incorrect, may he harmless in their effect; but others may throw a life-long blight upon the soul. You may see many a curious windvane in country villages, but few are more noticeable than one which a pious cottar set up by the gable of his thatched dwelling, for on it were these words cut out : “ God is Love.” “Do you mean to imply, said a neighbour, “ that God's love is fickle as the wind P” “ Oh, no,” replied the other ; “ what I mean is this, that whichever way the wind blows, it is all ordered by a loving God.” * Well, but some time alter, sickness amd death entered that dwelling, and on the back of them, poverty too ; and the same neighbour, looking in, remarked : “ Ah, friend, the wind's in the east with you now.” Yes, it is,” was the answer, but it’s blowing in love all the same—- “ We cannot always trace the way, Where Thou, our Gracious Lord, dost move But we can always surely say, That Thou art love.” A man’s gold and silver may be the rubbish that hinders him from building up Christian character. Like Saul, he is “ hid among the stuff.” His one thought from morning to night is Mammon. “ How much have I got, and how can I make it more p” is his chief daily concern. Ah ! pounds, shillings and pence have often blocked up the way to heaven. Money may get such a hold upon you that you can give your mind to nothing else. A rich old man lay a-dying, who yet seemed as if he could not die, and with aimless and nervous restlessness his hands kept moving about, opening and shutting, and clutching the bedclothes. “ What is the matter P” asked the physician, turning to the old man’s son; “ why is he so uneasy P” “ I know,” said he, “ what it is. E very night before he went to sleep he liked to feel and handle some of his bank-notes.” The youth slipped a ten-pound note into his father’s hand, and feeling, handling, crumpling it, he died.