(Continued from page 339.)
Miss Morton continued for a time wishing she could fly from the horrors of conscience and self, feeling the vileness of a corrupt heart and separation from the Saviour of sinners. Mr. Huntington, observing that the sandy foundation was thoroughly shaken, and false hopes given up, endeavoured to comfort by saying that God would not lay more upon her than she would be able to bear, but would, with His strong hand, ere long, waft her out of the miry clay, and ere she be aware, find the “place of defence to be the munition of rocks.” “Then shalt thou see the King in His beauty and behold the land that is very far off.” “Then shalt thou break forth as the morning and thy health shall spring forth speedily” (Isa. lviii., 8). His advice to Miss Morton was: “In the meanwhile let patience have her perfect work. Lie passive in the hand of God, and submit to be humbled under it, and He will surely exalt thee in due time. He will not destroy thee, nor forsake thee. When He has brought thee to resignation and submission, the storm will cease—a blessed calm will succeed. . . . Your future joys will more than counterbalance your present troubles, and you will bless God for ever for bringing you to Himself in ‘this new and living way’ which himself hath consecrated. . . “Your present trials will scour your mind better than all the sanctified ashes that are used on an Ash Wednesday. All the consecrated candles of the Candlemas day will not vie with the rays of your faith; and your victory over the world will exceed all the childish triumphs of a Palm Sunday. A daily cross will be sent to discipline your mind, instead of a crucifix at your bosom, or a cat-o’-nine-tails. Christ formed in your heart the hope of glory will be better than ten thousand silver Saviours in a trunk. Your own wants will teach you when and how to pray, better than any priest. You will look more to your own thoughts than to a string of beads—and watch your troubles instead of counting them. Your greatest mortification, and the worst penance, will be the loss of the Lord’s presence. When the bridegroom is (sensibly) taken from thee, then wilt thou fast in those days. So I predict, and so you expect and ‘Blessed is she that believeth, for there shall be a performance of what is told her from the Lord’.”
Again Mr. Huntington writes Miss Morton that as her convictions are still alive and attended with prayer to God, that it is clear that they are both from the Spirit of the Lord; for “the hypocrite will not always call upon God” (Job xxvii., 8, 9, 10); “nor will he cry when God bindeth him” (Job xxxvi, 13). . . . Your present sorrow is the ground of my joy with respect to you, for although I am sensibly touched with your present distress, yet I rejoice in the prospect of a future deliverance.
“I am fully persuaded that God will deliver you with an outstretched arm; but ‘there is a time for every purpose,’ and ‘the times and seasons are in God’s hands’; it is enough for us that He has promised ‘They shall not be ashamed that wait for Him.’ (Isa. xlix, 23). God ‘has not dealt with you after your sin, nor rewarded you according to your iniquities'” (Ps. 103, v. 10).
Mr. Huntington’s stern counsel regarding music
Again Mr. Huntington was obliged to come again with a rod as follows: “I found myself greatly disgusted at that musical instrument that I saw in your apartments; and by its being open, I judged that you had been playing on it. It is one of the devil’s rattles, intended to keep a crying conscience quiet. He was one of the cursed race of Cain, and the offspring of polygamy, that first invented those musical traps. ‘Jubal was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ’ (Gen. iv., 21). And Job says they are the children of the wicked that ‘take the timbrel and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ’ (Job. xxi., 12). I know you have your answer ready from the Psalms, ‘Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet; praise Him with the psaltery and harp; praise Him with the timbrel, and dances; praise Him with stringed instruments and organs’ (Ps. cl., 3, 4). Get you first ‘David’s faith’ and ‘David’s God,’ and then talk of David’s joys and music.
“I believe King David’s music to be typical of the melody of Gospel times, under the government of Zion’s everlasting king; ‘when joy and gladness shall be found in the Church, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody’ (Isa. li., 3).
“God commanded the use of ‘trumpets, ram’s horns, and golden bells.’ The first was to alarm the nation in times of danger, to gather the military forces for war, to proclaim a jubilee for slaves, and to call the tribes to their festivals. The ‘golden bells,’ intermixed with pomegranates, to be hung on the ‘skirt of Aaron’s vestment’ (Exod. xxviii., 34). The pomegranates typified the sweetness of divine love (Cant. viii., 2) and the ‘golden bells’ prefigured the songs of rapturous souls, when their hearts are influenced and enlarged by the Holy Ghost (compare Zech. ix. 10, 20, with Song i. 9).
“The Jews were more taken with music than with their God, and therefore He gave them their fill of it from a royal band in the plains of Dura, when they were invited to a strange dedication, and commanded, ‘at the sound of the cornet, flute, etc., to worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the King had set up’ (Dan. iii., 4, 5). ‘Woe to them that are at ease in Zion; that put far away the evil day; that chant to the sound of the viol, and invent to themselves instruments of music, like David; but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph’ (Amos vi., 1-6).
“You are sensible, Madam, that our spiritual Joseph has been grieved and afflicted in His cause, and in His members by your apostasy, His Command to you is, ‘Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols’ (Amos v, 23). God has called you to lamentation for your folly. Obey His voice, ‘Lest thy harp be turned into everlasting mourning, and thy organ into the voice of them that weep’ (Job, xxx, 31).
“I am obliged ‘to come to you with a rod’ (I Cor iv, 21), whether I am inclined to it or not, thou art so unstable (Gen xlix, 4). I have written sharply that I may know whether you are obedient in all things (2 Cor ii, 9).
“Fear not, the Lord will shortly visit thee with His great salvation; then thou wilt find a better melody than that of bell wire; and the tender care and kind providence of God will appear in a thousand shapes and forms.”
(To be continued)