What the Bible Contains for the Believer 103 when the Lord will come, or call us hence; and we want to be ready, both as to purity of character and the courtly culture of the heavenly city. We wish to be familiar with the history of redemption, and with the mysteries of the kingdom. We should not want to appear as an awkward stranger in our Father’s house of light. We can only get this sanctification of character and culture of life and manner by constant familiarity and communion with God and the saints through the Word. Men of the world are anxious that they, or, it may be, that their children, should appear well in the society of this world. To this end they devote themselves and them to the schools of the world and fashion; the dancing-school and the academy, they fancy, is the only place where polite manners and courtly grace may be acquired. Believers, too, are anxious that their children should be cultured and accomplished in every way worthy of being the King’s sons or daughters, as by grace they are. But they should not think of seeking for them the entree of what is called in this world the “best society”, or sending them to fashionable finishing-schools and dancing-academies, in order to such end. If they may have their hearts filled with the dear, great love of God, and the sweet grace of Christ; if they hang on the chamber walls of their souls as pictures, “Whatsoever things are honest, just, pure, lovely and of good report, and think on these things” (Phil. 4 :8 ) ; if they journey through this world in companion ship with Him ; if the Holy Spirit guides them through the Word, as Bunyan’s Pilgrim was led through the “house of the interpreter,” and shows them wonderful and beautiful things out of His law; if the fruit of the Spirit, which “is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance” (Gal. 5: 22, 23), adorns their lives and characters—Christians are not then afraid that their children will be a whit behind the foremost society people in the land in culture of mind and heart, and grace of manner.
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