I KNOW a little maiden, five years old, who thought that before her nothing existed. And at one time I rode up the hill with a farmer—a grown man —who thought that everything had been for about a million years!
Have you, my young readers, ever thought of the past? Do you know that your own great-grandfather was probably living in the days of Napoleon? And that not a great many generations would take you back to the days of Luther? A few steps further, and you come to the time of William the Conqueror; and so on until you arrive at the most wonderful time of all—the time “when Jesus was here among men.”
Time is like a river, flowing onward, ever onward. Men are like chips thrown on its surface, carried irresistibly along with the current. There is no turning back. On it flows. The man launched on this river, may, indeed, disappear from the surface, but he exists forever.
Some men are more than chips. They leave indelible traces of their presence. The greatest Mari of all was Jesus. In three years and a half what an effect He produced on the course of time! And that not by might nor by power, as men reckon might and power. Power there was; power that was used by love for the good of mankind. But He used not this power to do good to Himself. In the same love with which He healed the sick and raised the dead, He yielded Himself to suffer in weakness. He died, and God raised Him from the dead. He lives forever, and the influence of His life here, so short, has been felt ever since, and will be felt more and more, until every knee shall bow to the blessed Man who went about doing good, and at last yielded Himself to be crucified.
His name was spread abroad by His followers. Those of whom we know most, and who appear to have done most, were Peter, Paul and John. Of Peter and Paul we read in the Acts. The young reader will find that book most interesting. It tells about persons and their doings. Of John, after the Lord’s ascension, we know but little from sacred history. From his epistles and the Revelation, we may glean some knowledge of him. This much is evident, that he lived to see great and general departure from the truth. He was an old man, therefore, when he died.
For many of my young friends, and some of the older ones, from John to the times of their own grandfathers is an immense gulf, into which were thrown a few scattered facts, and two or three great names. Now, I propose that we should take a journey down the stream of time, setting up waymarks for each successive generation. The first shall be,
IGNATIUS.
Of the place and date of his birth nothing is known. He appears on the scene as Bishop of Antioch, the city where the disciples of Jesus were first called Christians. (Acts 11.) It was a gay, frivolous, busy, beautiful city. The population was made up of all races, but with a majority of Greeks; a people fond of all kinds of pleasure, and much addicted to theatre-going and sight-seeing.
In about the year 107, the Emperor Trajan, on his way to the Parthian war, came to this city, the capital of Syria, from Rome, the capitol of the world. He was a hater of Christianity and a persecutor of Christians. Why, it is hard to tell.
ML 07/19/1903