January 1

In that day shall there he … a pillar at the border thereof to the Lord. - Isaiah 19:19.

WHILE passing from one annual period to another, this remarkable and significant prediction concerning Egypt may serve to remind us of the obligation under which we lie to rear a pillar of remembrance and memorial unto the Lord our God. “At the border” of the new year, therefore, First, Let us, in the Spirit and design of the action, set up a pillar on which to record our past sorrows. This will tend to keep us in remembrance that while

    “Every sigh and every pain

     Are but the fruit of sin,”

our sorrows are designed for our benefit; that, as it is “good for a man to bear the yoke,” so it is good to remember it. The remembrance of these will sober our future prospects and lower our earthly hopes, while it will encourage us by showing that, though we may be “cast down” we may not be “destroyed,” and though we may be “troubled on every side,” yet we may not be “distressed.”

Secondly, Let us set up a pillar on which to record our temporal deliverances. David remembered the hill Mizar- probably the scene of some signal deliverance-Hezekiah composed a writing on his recovery from sickness, and gave it to the leader of the psalmody, in order that it might be sung in the temple, and he said: “The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day;” and Paul said, “He who hath delivered doth deliver, and he, we trust, will yet deliver us.” We, too, have been helped in our straits, and supplied every morning and evening with needed mercies. Let us take care to keep ourselves sensible of our obligations to God for his interposition.

    “Why should the wonders he hath wrought,

     Be lost in silence and forgot?”

Again, let us record on this pillar of remembrance our Spiritual benefits-such as the Son of his love, the Spirit of his Son, the throne of his grace, the word of his truth, and the exceeding great and precious promises thereof, which are “yea and amen in Christ Jesus.” All Christians have some red-letter days in the almanack of their experience, and times of love to remember and to be grateful for. Oh, what a “time of love” was that when he said unto us “Live;” when he “called us out of darkness into his marvellous light;” when he poured the balm of hope into the bosom of despair, and enable us to say, “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.”

    “Many days have passed since then,

     Many changes I have seen;

     But have been upheld till now-

     Who could hold me up but Thou?”

But we have been upholden in our work and warfare. What snares laid for our souls he has broken, and what “times of refreshing have come” to us “from the presence of the Lord.” At his throne, in his house, and at his table, how often have his comforts delighted our souls; and his promises have been fulfilled in our experience, meeting our wants and woes, our weaknesses and diseases. “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.”

    “Here I raise my Ebenezer,

    Hither by thy help I’m come;

    And I hope by thy good pleasure

    Safely to arrive at home.”