As we start upon our spiritual navigation from the great mountains and forests of the wild life of nature, we must be content to take the lowest and humblest steps that belong to beginners. The lowest class of vessels that go by water are those of the tow-boat rank, such as are used on canals, and barges for hauling slow and heavy freight.

There are two classes of boats that we must utilize in our journey before we come to the sail boat, which, in a proper sense, represents the life of a regenerated believer; of one who has the assurance of the Spirit that he is a child of God. In like manner there are two forms of legal religion which many persons pass through before reaching the assurance of justification. The tow-boat is pulled through the water by a force outside of itself, in the form of a mule on the bank of the canal, or of some sail or steamboat, to which it is tied with a strong rope or hawser. The other form of legal religion is represented by the row boat, which is a struggling force put forth by some one inside the boat, which we will consider in the next chapter.

Thus the tow-boat sets forth the pulling of a soul along in the ways of righteousness, by outside and natural forces, or the ropes of law, and is the lowest form of a religious life. In the true sense of the word the canal boat and the barge do not represent what the Scriptures mean by the word Christian, but we are now giving the modem and more accommodated use of the word, as embracing those who believe in the Scriptures, and are willing to put themselves under the restraints and obligations of religion, and begin seeking the Lord, if haply they may find Him. It is a sad fact that great multitudes who are classed as nominal Christians, are in this very lowest rank of canal boat legalism, and would never take one step in practical righteousness except they were drawn by a strong hawser, in the form of some law, or ceremony, or custom, or personal friendship. Most of the people that attend church services throughout the world, like the canal boat, do not possess on board, or within themselves, that awakened conscience, or sorrow for sin, or decision of right, or fear of God, sufficient to be a moving energy or a propelling force through the water; but if left to themselves apart from some strong rope to pull them, they lie sluggish and still, or drift with the current whither soever it will carry them. Those of us who have served in some army, and know the rough and reckless life of soldiers or miners, have seen this truth glaringly illustrated. Thousands who at home, and under the soft and blessed restraints of domestic life, and the routine of daily toil, and the sound of Sabbath church bells, and the influence of strong saintly characters, and all the honorable institutions of well ordered society, were fairly good men, and upright in outward department; when they were turned loose in the army or the mines, they soon threw off the pacific bandages of church and home, and like canal boats or barges on the Niagara river, without strong hawsers on the outside to hold them, they drifted rapidly to the awful precipice, and plunged into ruin.

Such is life in the present age, and such are the facts in regard to untold millions of our fallen and frail brethren in Adam, which only proves the utter helplessness of the human character, and the need of a super-natural power that comes down from some other world, and ties itself around man's inner spirit to draw him to righteousness. The more we love God, and the more our hearts are softened by that charity that runs down from heaven; the wider and deeper will be our sympathy for our fellow men, and instead of denouncing them for their wickedness, we will weep, not only over their bad conduct, but over the terrible helplessness in their inner being, that like the poor drifting barge, has no energy in itself to stem the current. Well here we are in our canal boat state of religion, depending on some patient mule, or strong horse, or good tug boat, to pull us along through the preliminary steps of religion. So let us bid adieu to the dreary rocks, and lonely forests of the old natural life, and get on board of our tow boat that floats lazily in the quiet canal, away back near the head waters of some river, and see that the strong ropes are well fastened at the prow of our wills, and begin our journey down to the river, bay, or harbor, from whence we hope in due time to launch out on the high seas of a holy and victorious voyage. While we are being slowly towed along through changing scenery of landscape or river, let us spend the time examining the various ropes and horse power that draw us onward.

1. Tow boat professors of religion are drawn by the rope of temporal fear, and temporal good, that may come to them as a consequence of their serving or not serving the Lord. The keen, swift action of a lively conscience, belongs more properly to the row boat class of religion, and so the case we are now considering is even lower down than an aroused conscience, but it is that state where people live on the surface, and can be moved mostly by external, surface, and temporal motives of restraint from sin. Though such motives are temporary and transitory, yet let us not despise them, for they serve an important part in the lives of most people. Some Christians speak very depreciatingly of weak states of grace, and of acting from earthly motives of temporal good or harm, but such persons forget that in their past years they have acted from the same motives, and been influenced by little things which they now consider as mere trifles. It takes a mature state of grace to properly appreciate the weakness that is common to the faint beginnings of religion. The Old Testament is filled with motives of a temporal character, to draw the Lord's people to ways of righteousness. If the Israelites would obey God, there would come long life, freedom from disease, victory over enemies, blessings in basket and store, in the fruit of their bodies, their cattle, and their fields. On the other hand if they forsook God, a long caravan of calamities would overtake them. Those grand old Scriptures have never been repealed, and God still appeals to man in his compound nature of body, soul, and spirit; and still uses the hopes of temporal good, and the fears of temporal evil, as strong cords to draw men from wickedness to righteousness. The prison, the gallows, the dread of some terrible form of sickness, or disgrace, acts with power on millions of mankind, and to speak with scorn against the wisdom of these motives of fear, betrays a mind exceedingly ignorant of the great laws that govern human creatures. Also the hope of temporal good, as a reward of well doing, though it be a lower motive than true Christians should act from, yet it is a legitimate motive, set forth in Scripture, and in the constitution of the human mind, and in the laws of society, and never can be ignored by intelligent faith. Hence thousands begin to serve God, drawn like a tow-boat by these outward visible cords of escaping earthly and temporal ruin, and the hope of gaining earthly, physical, social, and temporal good. We are constantly appealing to children, to young people, to drunkards, to spendthrifts, to reckless people, with motives of danger in this life, and blessings in this life, and to their bodies as well as their souls, which are like the ropes that draw the towboat. God's providence over men is so vast and minute, it sweeps the entire range of motives, and hopes, and fears, of the body as well as the soul, and of time as well as eternity.

2. Another strong hawser by which barge and canal boat Christians are taken in tow, is the personal influence and friendship of good saintly characters. We find a case like this in the history of the kings of Judah. In the time when Joash was a young prince in Jerusalem, there lived a very godly priest named Jehoiada, who exerted a powerful influence in the city, and over the young king. We read that Joash did that which was right in the sight of the Lord all the days of Jehoiada, the priest. (2 Chron. 24:2.) But farther on in his life, after Jehoiada died, the strong external cord that drew Joash in right ways, was broken; and like a barge cut loose from its tow, he drifted on the rocks, and persecuted and slew the prophets of God.

There are numberless cases of a similar character, where souls are under the restraining and drawing power of a holy wife, or a godly husband, or a praying mother, or a righteous father, or a pious minister, or a devoted sister, or brother, or a deeply spiritual friend, who exerts a heavenly sway over the conduct, the words, the manners, the business transactions, and the feelings of those who have no deep seated principle of religion in the soul, no secret propelling power for righteousness in their own hearts, but are led into many ways of goodness by the cordage of some other person's godliness. They are not in touch with God themselves, and are like those plants which are too weak to endure the light directly from the sun, but timidly open their flowers to the cooler light of the moon, and are influenced by divine things only at second-hand. In fact the majority of professing Christians never learn how to deal immediately with God, but get their inspiration second-handily from noon day believers. Their religion is lunar and not solar. For this reason those who love God with a personal love, should love him all the more, in as much as by them the Holy Spirit pulls along so many slow legalists, who otherwise would take no step at all toward God.

3. Another rope by which the tow-boat class of Christians are drawn onward, may be termed the religious mechanism of the Christian religion as it exists in the visible church, and religious society. There is much in religious education, and much of tenderness, and effection, and holy restraint, in the social habits of a Christian family, with its family altar, its evening hymns, its religious reading, its regular church going, to draw souls from the wrong to piety. Then there is much power in the public institutions of religion, the preaching of the Gospel, the solemn stillness of the Sabbath day, the memories brought up by the melody of church bells, the tender pathos that hovers over the church yard or the cemetery, where the good of other days are buried, and much in the regular forms of religious service, with its sacred associations to touch the natural feelings of the imagination and the heart, to restrain many a one from outward sin, and make them to think upon eternity and religion. It is true that many are environed with all of this education, and poetry, and pathos, who never admit the personal Savior into their heart of hearts, but whose lives are rendered better by the sway of these providential forces of religion. God told the ancient Jews that he had drawn them with the cords of a man, which is just the thought we are unfolding in this chapter. Have we not all of us passed through this state, where we felt we had no strength to arouse ourselves, or to pray, or take a step toward God, but like the sluggish canal boat, were glad to have a father's prayers, or a mother's love, or some sweet and noble friendship come and tie themselves fast to us, and by appealing to our human love, draw us toward the right. We shall find in this trip, that we are taking in our spiritual ships, many sturdy things far beyond the tow-boat religionist, but in the meanwhile let us thank God for the first feeble drawings of a soul toward God, even though it creeps along at the slow pace of a canal boat, drawn by some humble mule, who is a servant of the law, an I yet may be carrying a precious cargo that will feed many a hungry one across the distant seas.