But though we know little of Hannah—­she being many thousand years “dead, yet speaketh.”—­Come hither, ye who are tempest-tossed on a sea of vexations.  Learn from her how to gain the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit.  Come ye who feel that God hath judged you, and that you suffer affliction from his displeasure.  Learn that you should draw nearer to him, instead of departing from him.  Come with Hannah to his very courts.  “Pour out your soul” before Him; keep back none of your griefs; confess your sins; offer your vows; multiply your prayers; rise not till you also can go forth with a countenance no more sad.  He is “the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.”  Come hither, ye who long to know how your children may assuredly be the Lord’s.  Strive to enter into the spirit of Hannah’s vow, remembering, meantime, all it implied as she afterwards fulfilled it.  Appreciate, if you can, her love and devotion to her God; and when you can so entirely consecrate your all to Him, be assured he will care for what is His own, and none shall be able to pluck it out of his hand.  Come hither, ye who are called to part with your treasures; listen to Hannah’s song as she gives up her only son, to call him hers no more—­listen till you feel your heart joining also in the lofty anthem, and you forget all selfish grief, as she did, in the contemplation of His glories who is the portion of the soul. “My heart rejoiceth in the Lord.” Alas! alas! how does even the Christian heart, which has professed to be satisfied with God, and content with his holy will, often depart from him, and “provoke him to jealousy” with many idols!  Inordinate affection for some earthly object absorbs the soul which vowed to love him supremely.  In its undisguised excess, it says to the beloved object, “Give me your heart; Jehovah must be your salvation, but let me be your happiness.  A portion of your time, your attention, your service, He must have; but your daily, hourly thoughts, your dreams, your feelings, let them all be of me—­of mine.”  Oh for such a love as she possessed!  We should not then love our children less, but more, far more than now, and with a better, happier love—­a love from which all needless anxiety would flee—­a perfect love, casting out fear.

Ye who feel that death to your loved ones would not so distress you as the fear of leaving them among baleful influences—­who tremble in view of the evil that is in the world, remember where Hannah left, apparently without a misgiving, her gentle child.  With Eli,—­who could not even train his own sons in the fear of the Lord—­with those sons who made themselves vile, and caused Israel to transgress,—­she left him with the Lord.  “Go ye and do likewise,” and remember, also, He is the God of the whole earth.

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Original.

“OPENING THE GATE.”

I lately met with an account of a youth, under the above title, which contains a volume of instruction.  It is from a southern paper, and while particularly designed for a latitude where servants abound, it contains hints which may prove highly useful to lads in communities where servants are less numerous: