Religious Duties : Part 1

Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women
by George S. Weaver

(Page 12 of 16)

We propose a few thoughts in the present Lecture to young women upon their Religious Duties. The theme is a rich one. Any consideration of our relations and duties to the great Father of all, the Lord Almighty, the primal source of being and blessing, is replete with moral grandeur. God is a great and glorious word, expressive of all infinities, all perfections, all glories, word of all words, in power and grandeur above all. It should inspire us with reverence. The thought of that incomprehensible Being, which we mean by this word, should ever impress us with moral solemnity. And when we associate with this majestic Being the idea of Father, clothe him in a Father's love, fill him with a Father's care and benignity, he appears to us infinitely lovely and attractive as well as infinitely great and good. It is no common thought that gives to the universe of spiritual creatures a Father, that binds them all in one family with God as the head, that mingles in the great cup of universal existence of which countless millions of sentient beings are daily partaking, the sweetness of a father's goodness; that sees that goodness in the shining sun and falling shower, in the starry firmament and the little flower, in the sweep of worlds and the drop of dew, in the waving grain and the bubbling spring, in the changing seasons and the still, calm moments as they fly, in the great race of men, and in the individual members thereof.

We often say "Our Father in Heaven," but we seldom think of the majesty of the expression, nor the glorious beauty of the thought it conveys. God's grandeur is as much in his love as his power, as much in his goodness as his wisdom. He is as sublime in his Fatherhood as in his supremacy. The ocean of his tenderness is as deep as the mountain of his holiness is high. God, in his character, sweeps over the infinite spaces of principle and gathers in the infinite perfections of all characteristics of good. It is to such a Being that we owe our existence and all that makes it blessed and blissful. When we think of the earth as our present home, so wisely arranged, so beautifully adorned, and of heaven as our final and immortal scene of growing joy and blessedness; when we think of our own wonderful powers of mind and heart, and the objects of love and thought about us upon which to exercise them, progressive, immortal, Godlike in their nature; when, added to these, we think of the Bible with its blessed and elevating relations, its love of truth, its mines of wisdom, its moral sanctions, and, more than all, its Divine Redeemer, our Pattern Friend, Brother, and Savior, we can not well fail to be impressed with the infinite excellency of Him from whom we have received such rich benefactions.

And when we think that all this is done for us of his own unpurchased love, our obligations to our Divine Father become clear to our moral perceptions. We then see that we have religious duties to perform, duties which press upon us at all seasons and places, duties which we must perform, or stand before the great white throne of Eternal Love convicted of deep and dark ingratitude. We have received every thing, and have the promise of every thing, and have given nothing. We have been loved with an infinite affection, and have the promise of its everlasting continuance, and yet many of us have not returned the poor affections of our feeble finite hearts. We have been over-arched with the firmament of immortal goodness all our lives long, and have the promise that it shall span us forever, and yet we have drank in but little of its life and light. We have fed on the bounties of a benignant Providence and have scarcely returned an emotion of genuine thoughtfulness. Here we are; God is all the time doing for us; and we are thoughtless of his favors and indifferent to his holy friendship.

He strives to impress us with his greatness, but we scarcely seem to recognize the entreaties of his love or the munificence of his bountiful hand. Through His love he pleads in the earnest eloquence of a divine life and a perfect heart for us to bow in love at the feet of Jesus; but even those of us who profess to do so are cold in our love and weak in our resolutions. The world has stolen away our hearts. Evil associates have corrupted our good manners, and we are irreverent, sensuous, even in the house of God. To illustrate our impiety: suppose you, by some accident, had been cast away on some lone island, barrenness reigned around you; cold winds beat against you; alone and desolate you stood exposed to every element without and a prey to every want within. The sea in its wild fury roared around you. No living being heard your cries; no heart beat in sympathy with yours. Now, suppose in your distress a good spirit of the island should speak to you, out of a cell or cloud, and ask your wants; and should lead you into a beautiful temple, and tell you it was yours; should feed and clothe you; should surround you with beauty and comfort, furnish you with friends, and make every thing delightful so far as another could do for you, what kind of feelings ought you to entertain toward the good spirit? If you should forget him in your enjoyments, should abuse his gifts, should make him the subject of jest and sport, and blaspheme his name, would you not, in your thoughtful moments, despise yourself for your ingratitude? And yet this good spirit, in the supposed case, would not do for you a tithe your heavenly Father is doing for you every day; for life, and breath, and powers, all natural as well as spiritual things, we receive at his hand.

Few things are more base than an ungrateful spirit. If we do a favor either to a friend or stranger, and get no response of gratitude, we feel that something is wrong in his heart. Ingratitude we name among the most hateful feelings that ever darken the fallen heart of humanity. It is the parent of innumerable vices. It is a cold, Satanic mood of mind, suggestive of numberless forms of evil. And yet, unless I greatly mistake, there is much ingratitude in all our hearts. We eat, and forget the Hand that feeds us. We wear, and heed not the Adorner of our persons. We admire our bodies, and offer not an emotion of praise to the grand Architect of the universe and its beauty. We rejoice in our strength and comeliness, scarcely thinking that we owe it all to the Divine love. We delight in our domestic relations and affections, and often grow eloquent in praise of the sweet emotions of delicious joy which rise within us, half forgetting that they are all gifts from the gracious Divinity.

Fowler and Wells, Publishers, New York, 1856.