Gems Written at the Age of 16 - 18

The Hidden Life

Gleanings from the journal of Whitmore Winslow

written at the age of 16 to 18.

His journal, which was previously unknown to his family,

was found among his papers after his unexpected death,

at the age of 21. He died in 1856, and was the son of

Octavius Winslow.

When He afflicts, it is only out of kindness

Sweet it is not only to believe, but also to experience

that as much affliction as God is pleased to give, so

much of His divine blessing He invariably bestows with it.

He causes us to feel His rod that His blessing may

be experienced the more. He makes us to taste the

bitter only to prepare us for the sweet.

And when He finds that prosperity weans us from

Him and assimilates to the world, He chastens us.

Oh, how sweet to be resigned to His will, feeling

assured that He does all things for our best welfare;

that when He afflicts, it is only out of kindness;

and that when He accomplishes the end, He returns

to us laden with blessing.

O the demon SELF!

Alas! our noblest actions are so mixed with SELF.

Such is the real fact, I need not disguise it. This

it is that chills our warmest feelings, and mars our

happiness in looking to Jesus.

O the demon SELF! it will ever come in to spoil

that which is holy.

Alas, alas! how cold we are! How insensible

to the greatest mercies, perpetually reminded that

we are not only mortal, but sinful.

When I reflect upon the spiritual blessings which

I have received, and feel how insensible I am, oh

it is a cause of mourning. I think nothing is so

ungracious as a thankless spirit, and yet how

often do we manifest it when God has been so

good! We take care not to be ungrateful to an

earthly friend for the slightest benefit, and yet

how careless in thanking God!

How has God led me these many years! How has

He been the Protector and Guide of my youth! And

how has He brought me to what I am! When I

thought of all this I did lift up my heart in gratitude.

What He has done for me is overwhelming.

Oh, my precious Savior

What a blessed thing it is that we are not to live

here always, that our existence is not bounded by

this lower sphere!

Holy Father, may our hearts, while aching, praise

You that Your chastenings but wean us from this

sinful and disappointing world, and fill our minds

with holy joy, and longing hope for the blessed

heaven to come. Oh, may Your love more completely

fill these truant hearts! May Your ceaseless affection,

changeless ever, when we wander, link our souls in

closer union with You.

Oh, my precious Savior, may that look of pity and

love, which beamed so gloriously from Calvary, light

upon Your weak and sinful child! May I find in Your

loving bosom a shelter from the storm. And though

the world, or those I love, cease to sympathize,

precious Savior, You will never look coldly down,

but will open Your heart of love to receive me.

How low and humbled do we feel

As truly as the sinner feels himself unfit for heaven

and for heavenly society on earth, so truly does the

child of God feel sad and unhappy when in the society

of the wicked.

How low and humbled do we feel when accidentally

or necessarily obliged to listen to unholy conversation,

or to witness some open act of sin.

Alas! next to our own sinfulness we ought to deplore

the wickedness of those we are constantly coming in

contact with. All we can do is to observe a marked

silence, and show by our conduct and example how

painful it is to our spirits, though we would desire

openly to rebuke.

Words, however, are sometimes less significant

than conduct, and I have often found how powerful

is the effect of silent example. But we need much

wisdom and much grace both to speak and to act

as we ought and when we ought.

But, blessed thought, that with all our deficiencies,

the righteousness of Christ is our complete covering,

and by its merit we shall soon reach the realms of

purity where sin can never enter.

O Father, preserve me from the deadening

influence of all within and without; and grant

me an eye to see, and a heart to feel, all your

tenderness, forbearance, and love.

It grasps an airy bubble floating by in momentary splendor

Amid all the characters given by poets and philosophers

to Life, perhaps the least regarded is the IMAGINATION.

Life in its loveliest forms consists in a great measure

in the imagination. Thus thought loves to dwell upon

scenes of future or imagined happiness, grouping into

the most felicitous shapes all one's future career.

Thus it grasps an airy bubble floating by in momentary

splendor, and builds upon it a destiny of the highest and

most substantial happiness.

How one's youthful imagination seems to bear us on, blind

to the misery and woe all around us; blind to the stern and

sometimes sickening realities of existence, and alive only

to the beautiful and happy, the gay and glorious.

How imagination, that wonderful power of the soul, can

magnify a transient beam of sunshine into an ever abiding

and increasing stream of effulgent radiancy! How a look

from the eye, a smile of the countenance, a trifling act

of love, can kindle a flame in the soul, which our fond

imagination would persuade us to believe is enduring,

giving power and warmth!

How gladdening are feelings of youth; how keen its

susceptibilities to the beautiful!

But alas, alas! how Life in its onward progress alters

this beautiful picture! How soon do the dark shades

pencilled by the experience of sin and sorrow cast their

chilling influences upon the canvas once so gaily tinted!

How soon the keen blast of adversity sweeps away, as

with a whirlwind, all that before seemed so beautiful and

promising! How soon the slow but fearfully sure disease

cuts down the budding flower!

Yes, how strange a mystery is Life!

Yes, when once the eye has been turned in the right

direction, and the mists and phantoms have disappeared,

we shall see that life is the theater of action, and the

prelude to eternity; an eternity whose untold wonders

are beyond the highest flight of the imagination!

Can a man suppose that he was made for himself?

What a glorious motto for a man, "I Live for God!"

It is religion's truest definition.

It is a motto for a life.

Can a man suppose that he was made for himself?

Miserable thought!

Yet the world acts upon this belief. They devise, and

scheme, and accomplish apparently for others; but

the spring of action and the end of action is, SELF.

This is a course abhorrent to God.

A mere bubble, a toy, an insignificant nothing!

How blessed when one is low and downcast in mind

and body, to feel a little uplifting, and to trace, yet

more blessed, the healing hand of the Great Physician.

To see the Shepherd of the sheep stooping to take and

embrace in His arms of love the weak and feeble lamb.

"When men are cast down, then You shall say, There

is lifting up." Oh, the delightful feeling, this 'lifting up!'

Who can express it but the man who has been down

into the lowest depths, and then brought up so high

that the world appears, as it were, a mere bubble,

a toy, an insignificant nothing! The world no longer

is visible to him; lost in the glorious light shed upon

his soul by the sight of Jesus.

We sometimes reason ourselves into the belief, that

the world, with all its grandeur, beauty, and wonder,

must be something worth our attention.

But, oh! five minutes' communion with God, in spite

of reason and of ourselves, convinces us that nothing

but the object upon which our soul rests is truly great.

The way we read the Bible

What a difference there is in the way we read the

Bible; taking it up sometimes as a matter of form and

duty, perusing some of its most precious truths, and

laying it down again without sensible benefit.

There can be no mistake as to where the fault lies;

a cold or worldly heart, an eye covered with the film

of sensuous objects, are the real causes.

We do not know what Popery really is!

(The following was written by Whitmore Winslow

at the age of 18, after visiting a Roman Catholic

Cathedral in France.)

In England, we do not know what Popery really is!

We imagine it to be something repulsive, and cannot

conceive how people can be deceived by it.

But once to witness it as it really is, with its gorgeous

paraphernalia, you are admitted to the secret of its

power. The whole structure seemed to look down upon

you in conscious magnificence, and is intended to

inspire you with awe and reverence.

No system could possibly have been invented more

captivating to the senses, or better adapted to the

natural heart.

It allows its devotee free scope to sin, while covering

him with a cloak of religion.