The Persecuted Christian
DAY TWENTY-ONE
PONDER THIS ENGRAVING
MEDITATE ON THESE VERSES
Psalm 25:19 | Psalm 38:19 | 2 Timothy 3:12 | John 15:20 | Psalm 109:2 | 2 Corinthians 4:9 | Hebrews 10:32 | Psalm 118:11
My soul is among lions. Psalm 57:4–O, that I had wings like a dove! For then I would fly away and be at rest. Psalm 55:6.
POETIC REFLECTION
Lo! Where the Christian walks in sore distress,
While various evils round about him press,
Fierce persecution as a wild bull found,
With rage he roars and tears the solid ground;
The mean backbiter, like a snarling cur,
Assails behind, his character to slur;
Slander, grown bold, in form of wolf appears,
Ravening for prey, the innocent he tears:
The adder envy lies along his path,
And works in secret with its sting of death;
Fraud, like the crocodile, now lays his snares,
To catch the unsuspecting unawares;
Oppression, outrage, is the lion mad,
When naught but blood his cruel heart can glad;
For dove-like wings the Christian prays, oppress’d,
To fly to mansions of eternal rest.
DEVOTION OF INTERPRETATION
The engraving shows a poor man in great distress. Far from home, and apparently unprotected, he is beset with enemies on every side. He knows not which way to turn. Behind, he fears the bellowing of the furious bull, maddened with rage, threatening to overtake and destroy him; while the dastard cur’yelps after him, close at his heels. Before him is the ferocious lion, gloating himself with the flood of his innocent victim; while the adder coils itself about his path, ready to pierce him with its deadly sting. On one hand is seen the hungry wolf, ravening for prey; on the other, the insidious crocodile, waiting to seize upon him, and drag him down to his den of rushes. In this hopeless condition, he longs for the wings of the dove which he sees flying over his head, for then he would escape them all; he would fly away from the forest of wild beasts to the open wilderness; there would he be at rest.
This is an emblem of what the Christian oftentimes has to suffer while passing through this world to his eternal home. Sometimes persecution, like the mad bull and furious lion seen in the picture, rages, and threatens to destroy Christianity itself, and to blot out the remembrance of it from the earth. The prophet Daniel was thus assailed, and cast into a den of lions. The early Christians were subjected to ten fierce and bloody persecutions, which terminated not until the Church had lost its character for holiness.
In the short reign of the bloody Queen Mary (about five years), of fire-and-fagot- memory, persecution in this form devoured 277 persons, among whom were 5 bishops, 21 clergymen, 8 gentlemen of fortune, 84 tradesman, 100 husbandmen, 55 women, and 4 children. These were all burned alive, besides numerous confiscations, etc.
Persecution, however, exists very frequently in a different form from the above. The backbiter plies his mean, cowardly trade, in order to injure the character of the righteous. The barking, snarling cur is the most useless of the dog kind; so the backbiter is the most despicable among men. Yet is he able, oftentimes, to vex the soul of the pious.
Sometimes slander, grown bold, like a hungry wolf, attacks the reputation of the man of God, as Shimel assailed David in the day of his adversity; or , like a hyena, it will ransack the grave, and defame the dead. This creature is considered the most ferocious and untamable of all animals. It follow the flocks, ravages the sheep-folds, and, when destitute of other provisions, will burrow into graves, and devour putrid human bodies that have long been buried.
Envy is known to plot in secret the destruction of that excellence she can not reach; while fraud takes advantage of the unsuspecting child of God and seeks to draw him into sin and trouble. In the midst of his persecutions, the Christian would fain borrow the wings of the dove, and seek refuge in some vast wilderness, “some boundless contiguity of shade,” or rather, the wings of some heavenly cherub; then would he fly to mansions of eternal repose, “where the wicked cease from troubling, and where the weary and forever at rest.”
“When rising floods my soul o’erflow,
When winks my heart in waves of woe,
Jesus, thy timely aid impart,
And raise my head, and cheer my heart.
“If rough and story be the way,
My strength proportion to my day,
Till toil, and grief, and pain shall cease,
Where all is calm, and joy, and peace.
Barber, John Warner, 1798-1885. Bible Looking Glass: Reflector, Companion and Guide to the Great Truths of the Sacred Scriptures, and Illustrating the Diversities of Human Character, and the Qualities of the Human Heart.
Philadelphia, Bradley, Garretson & Co., 1861