Imagens da página
PDF
ePub

ADDRESS.

BY REV. FAYETTE SHIPHERD

(As the wish, that I should contribute to the "Sketch Book," was unavoidably kept from me until it was about going to press, I can furnish nothing appropriate to such a work without neglecting pressing duties. The following remarks, addressed to James Anderson at his Installation over the Congregational Church in Manchester, Vermont, August 12, 1829, are at your service. They are characteristic of their author, therefore suitable as a "Keepsake" for his friends.) F. S.

Ir has fallen to my lot, my brother, to bid you welcome to the ministry.

Accept my personal assurances that you are welcome to its highest honors and choicest privilages.

Accept the warm assurance of this ordaining council, which they bid me give you, that you are welcome.

In behalf of all the churches of our country, with which we have alliance, I bid you welcome.

Receive this "right hand," my brother, as a solemn pledge that these assurances are heart-felt, and that you are welcome to the ministry.

We give this pledge thus publicly, that the world may know that we repose confidence in you as a

man of God and qualified to serve him at his altar. The righteous shall hear therefore and be glad and praise the name of the Lord, that another teacher of righteousness is established in Israel -another leader commissioned to head the consecrated "host of God's elect," in the conquest of the world.

Yes; and it will cheer your people as you lead them forth to battle, to remember that you are admitted to an intimate and affectionate alliance with every leader of God's Host. It will nerve their arm and strengthen their heart in days of deepest darkness.

This public pledge will exert a widely different influence over the enemies of Sion. It will not be likely to fill them with alarm, as they know, full well, that few only are allied for doing good -few, only, seek the peace of Jerusalem. And they know, too, that those few are feeble. But they will learn from it that you will never be left to encounter alone the perils of your noble enterprise, nor be unsolaced when reproach, for the name of Jesus, has broken your heart.

No; my brother! you shall never be forsaken of your brethren-never meet your enraged adversaries single handed and alone. This "right hand" is a pledge that you shall not. From this glad hour of consecrated fellowship your enemies shall be our enemies. Your safety our concern. Your welfare our delight.

If at any time, like David, your enemies beset you round on every side and close up every avenue through which you might hope to escape their vengeance-fear not. Commending yourself to the protection of the Great Captain of Salvation who has promised that he will never leave those who confide in Him, hang out from "the pinnacle of the temple" some signal of distress. Instantly our wakeful eye shall see it, and, quick as solicitude can bring us, we will rally for your relief. Harnessed for the battle we will plant ourselves around you and with undaunted firmness receive, with you, the tremendous shock of a united onset. Again I say, fear not. No enemy shall approach to do you harm who has not first trodden our prostrate bodies in the dust. No deadly thrust shall ever reach your side which has not first transfixed our bosom.

If, at any time, your christian faithfulness shall provoke the enemies of truth and holiness to asperse your character and by devices as artful as they are base, attempt to defeat your efforts to do good this "right hand" is pledge, my brother, that we will unite our efforts with yours to detect their devices, break their snares, and rescue your character and usefulness from their destructive grasp.

If at any time you descry above you a cloud of portentous aspect-if on its dark and lowering front evil sits enthroned in horrid form, and no timely shelter offers its protection to your defence

less head-fear not. Seek first and earnestly the protection of Him who makes darkness his pavilion and directs the storm, and if human agency be needed to execute His purposes of mercy toward you, we shall rejoice to furnish that agency. Yes: : my brother! you have this "right hand" as pledge that storms of threatning ill shall never scare us from your side. Regardless of consequences we will take our stand beside you in the dark and black day and look with steady gaze upon the coming storm. Our presence with you will tend to allay your fears; and lifting this "right hand" above your head we will exhaust the cloud of its fiercest thunder bolts and lay them harmless at your feet. Not by our might or power, but by God's spirit.

You are aware, I trust, my brother, that the highest dignity, the choicest blessings and most splendid honors of the ministry are inseparably connected with service.

The gladness that wings this auspicious hour and warms our bosom, comes not from any opening prospect of indulgent ease or idleness that awaits you. No! assuredly it does not. A dying infidel has left his commisseration behind him for the wretch who can be either idle or at ease while deathless souls are periled, lost by his neglect.

If we thought you would be idle and regardless of your flock, we would not bid you welcome to

the ministry-would not give you this "right hand of fellowship."

Before you are spread out in their nakedness, in the path-way of ministerial fidelity, exhausting study and unwearied toil, with persecution in its varied forms. It is to an office that has such appendages that we bid you welcome.

But shrink not from toil or suffering when God is to be served or man to be benefited. Allied to Moses and Paul and Luther and Brainerd, and above all to Jesus Christ in labor and in sacrifice you will share with them your well earned honors and eternal joys. Having blessed the world with an influence as salutary as it shall have been extensive, you will occupy "a mansion in that house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." Your room shall be of the suite occupied by the Prophets and Apostles of our Lord; and from you shall go forth to walk "the golden streets of the New Jerusalem" arm in arm with them while conversing on the things that "pertain to the kingdom."

it

Or, should you be unable to overtake them in their rapid march up towards the throne of the Eternal: you shall tread the path they trod, accompanied with kindred spirits of elevated grades, who commenced with you the career of glory and of life centuries after the Prophets and Apostles were in heaven.

« AnteriorContinuar »