Bowen's Daily Meditations

In great cities we find monumental arches, columns, obelisks and tablets, telling of victories won by man over man; but death writes his name loftily on all these, saying, " Man's victories are my victories." But the monumental trophies of death are found in all cities great and small, in all places, in fact. Death lords it everywhere and over all. Scarcely has humanity begun to put on nobility or virtue in any quarter, before death appears and sweeps away the excellent object, terrifying...

When the adversary heard, by the waters of Jordan, a voice from heaven exclaiming, " This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased," he started like one who suddenly discovers a hostile army in the heart of his dominions. Fast he followed him on whom the Lord had lain help, followed him to the wilderness, and rained upon him those missiles by which he had conquered in ten thousand battles. He said to himself no doubt, " Adam was the Son of God and...

Voluntarily, heartily following thy banners; volunteering to yield their substance, to forsake their hearths, to fight the good fight of faith. In that day there will be no constraint or distraint; no legal enactments to maintain a ministry; no political alliance, no dependence on the state. The willingness of Christ's people will afford all the scope that is requisite for the manifestation of Christ's power. Then shall be heard a loud voice exclaiming, " Now is come salvation, and strength,...

Not that we shall be exempt from loss disappointment, sickness, human unkindness, embarrassment, vexation, insult, defamation, humiliation; not that we shall have in this world all the displays of providential favor on which we may have calculated; these are not the things promised; the promise that he hath promised us is eternal life. God may have dealt strangely with thee, my soul; but say frankly, has he at all dealt with thee in a way to hinder the fulfillment of the promise made thee?...

If this world should resolve to send an embassy to the most high God, whom would it choose? Well, the princes of this world would be represented; the brother of some Czar, or the nephew of some Emperor would go for them. The bishops and high clergy would be represented by some legate of ample wealth. The literary world would send some Goethe, or Confucius, or Plato. The merchants would send a Rothschild. The artists would find a Raphael. There would be an ermined judge and a decorated...

God is represented to us as the God of all patience and consolation, the God of peace, the God of hope, the God of grace, the God of comfort, all expressions denoting his relations to his people, and designed to reveal him to them as the all-sufficient and inexhaustible fountain of peace, patience, and comfort. As often as the word comfort is mentioned, and how often it is! our thoughts should be spontaneously turned from the petty, the misnamed comfort of earth, to the infinite Comforter....

Sell all that thou hast and give to the poor, says Christ, Except a man forsake all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple. Having food and raiment, let us be therewith content. Give us this day our daily bread. We are crucified unto the world and the world unto us.

Naturally, we grasp at all. We embrace with our hands all that we possibly can, and embrace the rest with our desires. What we are not able to inscribe with our name as possessor, we inscribe with our name as candidate....

We are here called upon to observe the providential wisdom and faithfulness of God, shown in his care of the good. "We are not merely to glance at these good ones, but to keep our eye upon them; for though God's providence may, for a season, appear to be adverse to them, yet at the end it will be found that he has led them carefully by his all-righteous hand. Not that they will die in affluence, in splendor, or in great worldly honor; but they shall exhibit their sure trust in God by a...

The reference here would seem to be to the efforts made to intimidate the followers of Christ, by penal enactments, sanguinary edicts, or by popular violence. The early Christians were summoned before magistrates and commanded to renounce the faith they had embraced or had shown themselves ready to embrace, by some unequivocal act of homage to a heathen divinity or to the image of the emperor. Satan made himself as terrible as possible, saying, " Cast away your confidence, or I will tear you...

Men of this world look with ineffable scorn upon the customs, sentiments and language of those whose chief pleasure is in celebrating the dying love of Christ, crucified for sinners. They detest, they loathe the language of many of our hymns; for example, such lines as these:

" Dear dying Lamb, thy precious blood

Shall never lose its power,

Till all the ransomed church of God...

Of the fear here so honorably spoken of, suffice it now to say that it is not by any means a sentiment that repels from God, but on the contrary one that draws to God. They that fear the Lord, in the honorable and Scriptural sense, are they who are powerfully affected by the promise here given. To the great majority of men, alas, to many who assume the name of Christians, the promise here recorded possesses no charm. Their spirits are no way stirred within them by the prospect of being made...

The law of God is written in our hearts, when it is the best expression of our desires, the best description of our tastes and affections, the best enunciation of our resolutions, the true exponent of our faith, the most conspicuous thing in our memories. It is written in our hearts, when our words give utterance to it in thousand fold modulation; when our acts embody it; when our influence is its influence. When Christ abides in our heart by faith, then is the law written in our hearts....

God considered that this life of ours is very short, very fugitive, and that crowd it as he might with expressions of his kindness, he never would be able to give anything like a sufficient revelation of his love. So he resolved to take time beforehand, a great deal of it, and fill all heaven and earth, from the very beginning on continuously, with the manifestations of his love to the creature that was to live in this our day, was to hover for a little about the middle of this century, and...

Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but out of them all the Lord delivereth them. If worldly men are competent to effect the deliverance, the Lord accomplishes it by them. If saints are needed, saints are employed. If the impediments cannot be removed in this way, if supernatural aid is necessary, then the angels receive their commission. If an army of these invincible ones are needed, they are sent, and under the guidance of their leader they encamp around about the imperiled...