Scripture texts illustrated by general literatureJacox, Francis
Religion
Scripture texts illustrated by general literature
Jacox, Francis
Homiletical illustrations
When Nelson told the King of Naples, in plain terms, that he had his
choice—either to advance, trusting to God for His blessing on a just
cause, and prepared to die sword in hand; or to remain quiet, and be
kicked out of his kingdom; the king made answer that he would go on, and
trust in God and Nelson. Of the same stuff as Nelson, but his superiors
in moral character and in practical recognition of Him that is Holy,
Holy, Holy, as well as Lord God Almighty, were those early English
navigators, characterized by a modern pen as “indomitable God-fearing
men, whose life was one great liturgy.” “The ice was strong, but God
was stronger,” says one of Frobisher’s men, after grinding a night and
a day among the icebergs; not waiting for God to come down and split
them, but toiling through the long hours, himself and the rest fending
off the vessel with poles and planks, with death glaring at them out of
the rocks, and so saving themselves and it. We read in Turell’s Life of
Dr. Benjamin Colman, “that reverend father in our New England Israel,”
as Mr. Lowell calls him, that when the vessel in which he had taken
passage for England was attacked by a French privateer, he “fought like
a philosopher and a Christian, ... and prayed all the while he charged
and fired.” His the practice was, if not on his lips the maxim, to pray
to God and keep his powder dry. It is expressly noted of the Maid of
Orleans, in the _Procès_ on record, that while she rather evaded the
question of resorting to miraculous aids and appliances, and of affecting
supernatural power, she “used the Gallic proverb, _Ayde-toi, Dieu te
aydera_.”
“In daily toil, in deadly fight,
God’s chosen found their time to pray;
And still He loves the brave and strong,
Who scorn to starve, and strive with wrong,
To mend it, if they may.”
Forcible is the portrait drawn in a recent work of fiction, of a man now
steeped in moral degradation, who had once tried to be honest, and prayed
to God to prosper his honesty; but then he only tried to do right in a
spasmodic, fitful kind of way, and expected his prayers to be granted
as soon as uttered, and was indignant with a Providence that seemed
regardless of his entreaties.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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