As a lover of the past, I am often tempted to believe that I was born out of my time-that I was meant to live in the 19th century... William Mountford reminds me that such thinking is folly. His sermon, "Quiet Work" continued...Study to be quiet and to do your own business." Till we can exert ourselves and be quiet, we cannot be nobly minded. It is while we are walking in the way of duty that angel thoughts meet us. Seldom or never do great thoughts come to a fretful or desultory man. There must be order and quiet in the temple of a man's soul before the windows of it will open for light from heaven to come in.
But we think " Oh if we had but been living in any place else, or in any other age than the present, and then we could have done as Paul advises." We think, we could have possessed our souls in peace, in the past, the venerable past. But the past was no more venerable to live in, than our present is. But our differences fret us; our circumstances chafe us ; our enemies make us haters. Poverty now is an odious dread. In the world as it is now, we can not live as we could have lived in Thessalonica: so we think...
...this present is our age, our opportunity in the world; and there will no other be allowed us. Our circumstances are very untoward, as we think ; then it is for us to think also, that they yield us the nobler chance. Our annoyances are so very tantalizing ; our hardships are so very distressing ! well then our calmness with them may be so very heavenly. Let us cease looking away from our own localities and fancying more favorable scenes of life ; and let us understand, that what is wanted from us, is not the quiet of ease, but the quiet that is studied, that comes of prayer, and of doing our business with God looking on. Persecuted, unfortunate, hard-worked ; let us none of us be distracted, but believe that perhaps we are divinely privileged..."
(true enough-but I think I will hold on to some of my love for "the good old days" at the same time...)
Blessings
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