FROM

THE

E V A N G E L I S T ,

Go you into all the world, proclaim the good news to the whole creation:--he who be- lieveth and is immersed shall be saved; and he, who believeth not shall be condemned.
MESSIAH.
NO. 1.	CINCINNATI, JANUARY 7, 1833.	VOL. 2.

      Some object, possessed of real beauty, or endowed by imagination with fictitious charms, engrosses the affections of every human being. The tender infant delights in the maternal bosom: the hoary miser glories in his hidden treasures. The ardent lover, and the artful politician; the military chieftain, and the peaceful artizan; the lowly rustic, and the haughty monarch, bow with equal devotion, though at different shrines; and all pursue, with unwearied diligence, that fancied GOOD, from the possession of which, they anticipate perfect felicity; and which constitutes for a time, the ultima thule--the most distant aim of their ambition. No dangers and difficulties, however threatening; no temporary privation, however great, can quench the ardour of their zeal, or stay the constancy of their perseverance; and disappointment itself serves, not to terminate pursuit, but only to change its object.

      Whether it be a faint remembrance of his primeval glory which induces man thus to seek to better his condition, and to retrieve his fortunes; or merely the consciousness of present suffering and privation, which forms the motive by which he is impelled in the pursuit of happiness, certain it is, that this eagerness of desire for more than he possesses, these incessant exertions to fill up the measure of his joys, serve to show that he is a fallen and an imperfect being. For he cannot be absolutely perfect, to whom any thing is yet to be added; and as desire always implies its object, man ceases to be imperfect only when he has no longer any thing left to wish for. And it is therefore, because he is conscious of his deficiency, that he labors to supply it by adscititious worth, and hopes that the possession of the beloved object will supply his wants and render him perfect and complete. [17]

      Yet how rarely does he realize his expectations! How seldom does he secure the wished for blessing! How often does it fly before him, as the setting sun before the approaching shades of evening, never to be overtaken! How often does it allure him to a vain pursuit,

      And even if obtained, how oft,

      Or if it does not thus perish at the moment of fruition, how soon is it found to be inadequate to supply his wishes! How totally different it proves to be from that happiness for which he so anxiously sighed!--The glittering bauble which the child so wishfully desires, ceased to gratify when it is once obtained.--The possession of a world could not make him perfect who wept because he had not more worlds to conquer!

      Yet, is there one amidst the throng, whose pursuit has not been vain, and who has not experienced the bitterness of disappointment. His Beloved is more than another Beloved, the chiefest among ten thousand, and his love is better than wine. To him, IMMANUEL is the source of supreme enjoyment, and the unfailing fountain of perennial delight. The draughts of pleasure which he receives from Him contain no bitterness, but are purer than the streams of Lebanon. The grateful food which he provides is sweeter to the taste, than the clusters of the vine, with all the pleasant fruits. As the apple-tree among the trees of the wood, so is his Beloved among the sons; and beneath his shadow he sits down with great delight. To him he is the lily of the valley, and as the rose of Sharon--the rose without a thorn. The beauty of his character is his study all the day: his faithfulness and truth, his joy in the night season; and like the sunflower, which, [18] though fixed to the soil by it root, turns continually its head towards the sun,² he loves to look off to Jesus, and to contemplate the object of his affections. For by him alone he feels himself ADORNED, in him alone made PERFECT: no anxious wish for happiness is now unsatisfied, but all his wants, and deficiencies are forever removed; and he feels himself COMPLETE in him who is the head of all principality and power, and who is made to him wisdom from God, righteousness also, sanctification and redemption.

      He delights not in the boasted excellence of Athenian wisdom and philosophy:--the speculations of Aristotle, the reveries of Zeno, or the bold pretentions of Epicures. He has learned to despise a philosophy which betrayed its weakness, and acknowledged its inadequacy to supply his wants, by imposing an absolute silence upon desire, and asserting that the destruction of the wish for happiness was equivalent to enjoyment. He pities a wisdom which brought no salvation; which taught men to derive their gods from the world, instead of deriving the world from God, and to worship thirty thousand divinities, the creation of human fancy, and the workmanship of mortal hands. To him the wisdom of the wise is foolishness, and the strength of the mighty weakness; for Christ has become to him the wisdom and the power of God. In him he finds laid up all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, and his soul rejoices in his inexhaustible riches, the depths of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, whose judgments are unsearchable, and his ways past finding out.

      He covets not the applauding voice of men, whose scrutiny reaches only the exterior, whose acclamations fail to silence the clamors of a disapproving conscience, and whose flattery fails to soothe the dull cold ear of death; nor does he dread their condemning frowns, for God has justified him, and being declared innocent by him who trieth the heart and reins, he has peace with God through the Beloved who has become the Lord his righteousness.

      He needs not to seclude himself from the haunts of men, in the shades of retirement, the monastic cell, or the solitude of the recluse, for Christ has sanctified him in body, soul and spirit: has separated him from the vices of the world, and set apart its blessings for his enjoyment.

      Nor does he seek that sovereign good in vain attempts to appease an awakened conscience by the mortifications of the cloister, the severities of penance, or the voluntary humilities of an austere devotion: for his Lord has borne his griefs and carried his [19] sorrows, and through him he has redemption, even the forgiveness of sins. He is his rock of strength, his refuge, and his salvation; and to him there is no name so delightful as the name JESUS.³

      In a word he engages not in the pursuit of wealth, for the unsearchable riches of Christ delight his soul: he longs not to be a conqueror of the world, for all things are his, whether the world, or life or death, or things present, or things to come; he strives not to gain an earthly crown for Christ has prepared for him an heavenly diadem: he seeks not an alliance with the noble and the great, for with a pure heart, and robes washed in the blood of the Lamb, he has taken his seat among the sons of God; and while he beholds the vain pursuits of men, with all their crimes, their miseries, and their disappointments, he finds new charms in Him, who is his shield, his trust, his treasure, his love, his life, his all.

      Were life forever like a calm and tranquil sea, or a fair and cloudless sky; if man, like the sun-dial had no hours to mark but those which are serene and bright;⁴ even then the pleasure which he enjoys in Christ, would be purer, more perfect and delightful, than the tumultuous and illusive joys possessed by the most favoured of the favourites of fortune. But it is at those gloomy periods of terror and alarm, when the stories of adversity arise, and the gay sensualist, who basked securely in the sunshine of prosperity, is filled with despair, and can find no refuge, it is then that the Christian can rejoice in the Lord, and joy in the God of his salvation. It is in the hour of darkness, and distress, and desolation, that he finds himself indeed COMPLETE in him who is light, and life, and glory. It is when he walks through the valley of the shadow of death that he fears no ill, for his rod and his staff comfort him;--it is then that he can exclaim: Oh! happy day, that brings me into the assembly of the spirits of the just, and delivers me from all the troubles of this mortal coil! for I am going to my Jesus, the lover of my soul, the son of the Highest, in whose presence there is life everlasting, and at whose right hand there are pleasures forever more.

ALUMNUS.      

[The Evangelist 2 (January 1833): 17-21.]

      Robert Richardson's "Jesus" was first published in The Evangelist, Vol. 2, No. 1, January 1833. The electronic version of this essay has been produced from the College Press reprint (1980) of The Evangelist, ed. Walter Scott (Cincinnati, OH: Walter Scott, 1833), pp. 17-21. The electronic version has been produced from text scanned by Colvil Smith and formatted by Ernie Stefanik.

      Pagination in the electronic version has been represented by placing the page number in brackets following the last complete word on the printed page. In the printed text, footnotes are indicated by printer's devices (asterisks, daggers, etc.); in the electronic text, they are treated as sequentially numbered endnotes. Inconsistencies in spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and typography have been retained; however, corrections have been offered for misspellings and other accidental corruptions. Emendations are as follows:

 Page       Printed Text [ Electronic Text
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
 p. 17:     unweared [ unwearied
            retrive [ retrieve
            pri- va ion, [ privation,
 p. 18:     that happines [ that happiness
            lilley [ lily
 p. 19:     dispise [ despise
            severeties [ severities
 p. 20:     conquerer [ conqueror
            his love his life, [ his love, his life,
            dispair, [ despair,
 

      Addenda and corrigenda are earnestly solicited.

Created 1 July 2000.