YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

From the Library of
HERVEY D. LELAND, YALE 1885
Gift of
JAMES R. JOY, YALE 1885

By the Same author
IN THE SECRET OF HIS
PRESENCE Third Edition 3/6
THE MASTER'S QUESTIONS
TO HIS DISCIPLES
Fifth Edition 5/-
London : H odder & Stoughton

IN THE CLOUDY AND
DARK DAY

Thus saith the Lord God ; behold I, even I, will both
search my sheep, and seek them out. As a shepherd seeketh
out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are
scattered, so will I seek out My sheep, and will deliver them
out of all places where they have been scattered in the
CLOUDY AND DARK DAY.  Ezek. XXxiv. II, 12.

Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who
comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able
to comfort them that are in any trouble, by the comfort
wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. — I Cor. i. 3, 4.

IN THE CLOUDY AND
DARK DAY

GOD'S MESSAGES OF PEACE TO THE WEARY,
THE SORROW-LADEN, THE TROUBLED,
AND THE TRIED

REV. G. H. KNIGHT
AUTHOR OF " THE MASTER'S QUESTIONS TO HIS DISCIPLES,"
THE SECRET OF HIS PRESENCE," " DIVINE UPLIFTINGS,"
"FULL ALLEGIANCE," ETC.

HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LONDON MCMX

Printed by Hagell, IVateon & Vinsy, Ld., London and Aylesbury,

CONTENTS

i
PAGE
THE UNIVERSAL BAPTISM .... 3
II
IS IT ALL A MYSTERY ? . . . .II
III
SOUL-HEALING FIRST  21

IV

SAD HEART AND WEARY FEET . . 3 1
v

vi CONTENfS

V PAGE
THE REFINER'S FIRE  41

VI
SUNSHINE ON THE CLOUD 51
VII
" EVEN SO, FATHER " . . . .63
Vlll
THE MAN OF SORROWS 71
IX
THE DRUDGERY OF COMMON LIFE . . 8l
X
" THY HIDDEN ONES " . . . .89

CONTENTS vii

XI
PERILS IN THE DARK .... 97

PAGE

XII
TRANSFIGURED FACES  105
XIII
SHATTERED HOPES  II5
XIV
A SONG IN THE NIGHT .... 123
XV
THE LONG LAST MILE  1 33
XVI
ON THE RIVER'S BRINK .... I4I
b

CONTENTS

XVII PAGE
BESIDE THE GRAVE  149

XVIII
THE SORROW OF THE HOPELESS . . . 159
XIX
WITHIN THE VEIL  1 67
XX
THE ETERNAL HOME  175

INTRODUCTORY
THE UNIVERSAL BAPTISM

O Christ, whose Voice once made fierce billows rest.
And chased from sorrow's eye the blinding tear.
Calm Thou the heavings of each troubled breast.
And soothe to quietness its waves of fear.
Let Thy great Words of heavenly power and peace
Speak comfort to the hearts of wearied men.
Till sin and death and pain and sorrow cease,
And earth is made a Paradise again.

I
INTRODUCTORY
THE UNIVERSAL BAPTISM
ELIPHAZ the Temanite was only expressing
an age-long experience when he said,
" Though affliction cometh not from the dust,
neither doth sorrow spring out of the ground,
yet man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly
upward." 1 He was not a soured pessimist
who said that. It was not the petulant wail
of a disillusioned man with whom everything
had gone wrong. It was the calm, sad verdict
of one who looked the world in the face, and
his words are as true to-day as they were three
thousand years ago. Grief is a universal baptism
— the only baptism that is universal. The cup
is always going round ; and, at some time or
other, in some way or other, in some measure
or other, every child of Adam has to drink of
it, and many have to drain it to the bitter dregs.
All the world over, the chalice passes from hand
to hand, from lip to lip.
1 Job v. 7.
3

4 THE UNIVERSAL BAPTISM
Those surely are blind to facts who almost
scornfully refuse to speak of the world as " a
vale of tears " ; for tears bedew the life-path
of every one of us. There are tears on the face of
the child. They fall thick from the eyes of
manhood and womanhood. Old age, too, has
its tears, sometimes the saltest of all. And
there are heart-weepings where there is no
outward sign of the deep-seated pain ; tears of
regret, tears of apprehension, tears of remorse
and shame, tears of despair, tears for the wrecking
of earthly hopes, and tears for the burden of
unforgiven sin. The long story of the world,
if fully told, would be only like Ezekiel's roll,
" a book written within and without with lamenta
tion and mourning and woe." '
If it is strange how often deep trouble comes
in unexpected and inexplicable ways, it is stranger
still that it comes not merely upon those who
are living without God — there would be small
wonder in that — but upon so many who are
living humbly, and holily, and faithfully with
God, on those who have done nothing to bring
it down, but are the innocent victims of other
men's iniquity. In such a case, it comes not as
a punishment for any definite sin, but only as
a gracious, though hard, discipline leading to
larger and diviner good ; but, one way or other,
1 Ezek. ii. io.

THE UNIVERSAL BAPTISM 5
there is no escaping it, however fiercely, some
times, we may rebel against the blow.
Now why repeat such truisms as these ? Only
to set over against them what is equally true
though not equally believed, that God has for
every sufferer some loving, helpful, and consoling
message of peace. It is just on this account
that His great Book is so full of tender comfort-
ings from its first page to its last. It is just this
that makes its Gospel of Life and Hope so dear
to suffering souls.
For it is, pre-eminently, the Book of Joy ; full
of sorrows, but full of victory over sorrow too ;
its deepest tones the tones of a ringing gladness,
wonderfully uplifting and marvellously sweet.'
Think of the world as it always has been and
still is, a world full of tragedies too deep to be
measured, and griefs too numerous to be reckoned
up, and is not the greatest need of men that there
should be some one to comfort them, to lift them,
to give them hope ? That is the blessed work
of God's great Book, because it is the blessed
work of God Himself who is " the God of consola
tion " and whose loving will it is " that we
through comfort of the Scriptures may have
hope."1 " It is worth our thought," says Bishop Hunt
ington, " how small the audience would be that
1 Rom. xv. 4.

6 THE UNIVERSAL BAPTISM
would assemble weekly, life through, to listen to
a Gospel that had nothing to say to sufferers.
Poor, weak, and broken hearts, staggering under
their loads, would refuse a Comforter Who had
never wept Himself, nor remembered that His
followers must weep. A religion that addressed
itself only to those who are in a state of comfort
would be like a system of navigation calculated
only for clear weather, and giving no aid when
night and cloud have wiped out all way-marks
from earth and sky, and the tempest shrieks in
the darkness over an unknown sea." God's
messages are not messages from a useless Com
forter. They are messages of Light, and Love,
and Hope, and Home. May every reader of the
Divine Messages contained in the pages of this
book find them so !
There are two classes of men to whom the
consolations of God are of no interest whatever
— those who are, as yet, untroubled by any deep
grief, and those who are completely indifferent to
their personal sin. There are multitudes every
where who seem to go calmly, even jauntily,
through life. Having sound health, plenty of
enjoyment, and an entire absence of worrying
care, they listen wearily to words of comfort
which sad hearts beside them welcome as wells
of water in a desert land. There are even more
who find no attraction in God's consoling voice,

THE UNIVERSAL BAPTISM 7
because they know nothing of what it is to lie
crushed and broken under the weight of unfor-
given sin. It is not consolation that such self-
satisfied souls really need, but rather the wound
of deep conviction, and a rough awakening out
of fatal sleep ; not to have a broken heart bound
up, but rather to have a whole heart broken
down in penitence at the feet of Christ.
To all, however, who in the sorrows of heart
and life do really feel the need of sympathy and
help from God, there is enough and more than
enough in this great Book of His ; for it shows
Him to be what, without it, not one of us would
have imagined Him to be, a Holy One Who is
also an infinitely Pitying One, a Father Who
indeed chastens His foolish children with a rod,
and yet, so soon as He sees the tear of sorrow
on the smitten cheek, takes His own wounded
sufferers into His arms, and consoles them
after all.
Reading the Bible through, with this thought
in the mind, we are surprised to see how pre
dominant in it the element of consolation is,
how tenderly God deals with the sinful, how
more than tenderly He speaks to the sorrowful,
the broken-hearted, and the tried. Nearly all
the great promises that lie scattered over the
pages of this Book were promises made to men
in great difficulties and straits. As soon as we

8 THE UNIVERSAL BAPTISM
come into the same or any similar position, the
promise is there for our faith also to grasp : and
we never know till then how great is its sus
taining power. The promises are like bridges
across a torrent-bed, which do not seem to be
of much use when the water is low, and the
channel is. almost dry, but which will be used
most thankfully when the floods are out, and a
raging stream is sweeping between the banks.
God has provided for all our emergencies ; no
possible kind of sorrow has been overlooked ;
but the value of His consolations we never know
till the day comes when we must have them or
die. And in that day we often learn to our
joyful surprise that they had long been waiting
for us, though they never exactly fitted our
need till then. With the wondering vision of
the newly opened eye we see that He had been
thinking of us when we had not been thinking
of Him, and had been thoughtfully forecasting
our need, and providing for it, while the actual
day of that need was still far in the distance, and
known only to Himself.
Word of the ever-living God,
Will of His glorious Son !
Without Thee how could earth be trod.
Or heaven at last be won ?
B. Barton.

IS IT ALL A MYSTERY ?

Fair visions gleaming through th^dprkness beckoned
My buoyant steps along the sunny way ;
Sweet voices thrilled me, till I fondly reckoned
That life would be one long blue summer day.
*
This was the way my feet had gladly taken,
And, blindly lured by that deceitful gleam,
I would have wandered on, by God forsaken,
TiU death awoke me from my fatal dream.
My pleasant path in sudden darkness ended,
My footsteps slipped, my hope was well-nigh gone ;
I could but pray ; and as my prayer ascended,
Thy face, O Saviour, through the darkness shone.
I woke from dreams ; and, cured of all my blindness,
I saw Thy Hand had checked my downward way :
The pain was keen, but all in loving kindness,
That led me out of darkness into Day. J. D. Burns.

II
IS IT ALL A MYSTERY?
THE utter unexpectedness of many life-
sorrows is one of their strangest charac
teristics. They come like a thunder-burst out
of a clear sky, not only without any premonition
of their coming, but without any apparent reason
for it ; and the crushed heart asks, either angrily
or despairingly, why it has been sent. Many
another sufferer besides Job has turned the face
to heaven in amazed perplexity, and prayed
" Show me wherefore Thou contendest with
me";1 and when no answer to that cry has
come, has either looked upon the whole thing
as an insoluble mystery, or coldly and half-
rebelliously resigned himself to the worship of
another god altogether whom he calls " in
evitable fate."
But surely we are often entirely wrong in
talking of the " mysteriousness " of God's deal
ings with us. We may not know all His reasons
for them, but some of His reasons are plain
1 Job X. 2.

12 IS IT ALL A MYSTERY?
enough. In multitudes of cases they are plainly
His sharp but merciful way of summoning a
reckless, self-centred, self-indulgent, worldly heart
to stop and think. They are meant to shake it
out of its foolish security, and out of that love
of the world which is so ruinous to our best and
highest life.
" A whip for the horse, a bridle for the ass,
and a rod for the fool's back "Ms one of the
pithy sayings of Solomon ; and he learned it
not only from his own experience, but also from
the teaching of his father David, who wrote :
"Be ye not as the horse and as the mule which
have no understanding, whose mouth must be
held in with bit and bridle, else they will not
come near unto thee." s
Suffering is often God's hard but salutary
restraint laid upon a wilful life that is ruining
itself. If we choose to live as the beasts that
perish, God will deal with us as with beasts ;
the cold hard bit will be thrust between the teeth,
and the lash will not be spared : and yet that
sore check given to a wayward soul may be the
beginning of its salvation. " Oppression," says
the preacher-king, " will make a wise man mad " ;s
but a greater Preacher by far has shown, in His
exquisite parable of the prodigal son, how suffer-
1 Prov. xxvi. 3. s Ps. xxxii. 9. R.V.
3 Eccl. vii. 7.

IS IT ALL A MYSTERY? 13
ing can make a madman wise. It was just
when the sorrows he had brought upon himself
by his self-indulgent reckless life were at their
worst, that the prodigal " came to himself,"
turned over a new leaf, said to himself " I will
arise and go to my father," and soon thereafter
wept out his shame and penitence upon his
father's breast.
But it is not the utterly reckless alone who
need the bridle and the bit. Even those who
are in the main God-fearing often go foolishly
very far astray, and need sharp reminders of
their folly to bring them back. What a hard
" bit " the Lord had to put into the mouth of
Lot to rescue him from what would have been
death to his soul ! Nothing less than a fiery
destruction of his foolishly-chosen home and of
all his wealth would do. What a terrible " whip "
of retribution did David feel when the child of
his sin lay dead before, his weeping eyes, and
when one after another of his house brought
shame and misery into his declining years !
What a sharp lesson of the folly of worldly
ambition was taught to Jehoshaphat after his
sinful alliance with the wicked Amaziah, when a
furious tempest wrecked the ships he had built
to go to Ophir for gold, and they lay broken in
pieces at Eziongeber !
Suffering is often God's loud call to repentance.

i4 IS IT ALL A MYSTERY?
It is a prophet speaking in God's name, but one
of those prophets whom you must go out into
the wilderness to hear : and He who loves us
better than we think may lead us into a wilder
ness of shattered ambitions just to get us to
listen to that voice which the noise of the world
drowns, the voice which says " Hear counsel,
and receive instruction, that thou mayest be
wise in thy latter end." ' Joab, in his insolent
defiance, refused to go to Absalom, though
message after message was sent, till Absalom
" set his barley-field on fire," and then he came
quickly enough ! Alas for us if God has some
times to burn up our comforts of every kind
before He can get us to listen to Him.
There is often no other way left of saving us
from self-destruction. " I spake unto thee in
thy prosperity," He says, " and thou wouldst
not hear." ! " Behold therefore the goodness
and severity of God," but be sure of this, that He
never resorts to severity till His goodness has
failed to win any response. Severity is the last
resource of love ; and so, severity is goodness
after all. All who in this way have been won
back to God will praise Him for the severity
ere all is done. Hezekiah was only expressing
the feelings of all God's chastened children when
he said, " Behold, it was for my peace that I
1 Prov. xix. 20. 2 Jer. xxii. 21.

IS IT ALL A MYSTERY? 15
had great bitterness ; O Lord, by these things
men live, and in all these things is the life of
my spirit." 1
How many now in the holiness and joy of
heaven could echo these words, and tell us that
but for the shattering of earthly hopes they
would never have had the heavenly one, that but
for being driven out of their self-made paradise
they would never have got into God's, that but
for being smitten by a Father's hand they would
never have had a place in that Father's House !
Does not this also explain much of the sorrow
through which even Christian hearts have some
times to pass ? They know that there is no
blessing worth anything except the blessing of
God. They would feel their souls utterly dark
ened if He should take away from them the light
of His countenance. They honestly ask to be
filled with the peace which that shining alone can
give. But then, they are not willing to risk much
for the sake of getting it. In all the habits and
plans and ambitions of daily life, they have one
eye upon God but the other eye upon the world.
They love their earthly comforts and luxuries
and pleasures so much that, almost uncon
sciously, these things fill up the largest part of
their horizon, and God's glory is put far too
much out of view. They are not indifferent to
1 Isa. xxxviii. 16 R.V.

16 IS IT ALL A MYSTERY?
His glory ; far from it : but there is a great
dead-weight of worldliness pressing them down,
and there is a great world-love that must be
taken out of them before they can have the full
enjoyment of His peace. The Lord sees that
the only way in which that world-love can be
killed is the way of some bitter discipline of
pain : and so, bad health comes, some pros
trating sickness interrupting all their worldly
activities comes, bereavement comes making
the world look poor, a sudden crash of fortune
comes, they are driven out of their paradise into
a wilderness of sand ; and there the foolish
pursuit of worldly good, a pursuit that bade fair
to ruin them, is stopped ; a merciful Hand
destroys their " happiness " to give them " peace,"
which is a wholly different and infinitely better
thing ; for it is only when the heart is empty
enough to receive it that this peace comes in.
That is a striking sentence in the 99th Psalm :
" Thou wast a God that forgavest them, though
Thou tookest vengeance on their inventions."
There are the "goodness" and the "severity"
going hand in hand. The goodness is for us,
the severity is for the sins and follies which we
have enshrined beside God, or even instead of
God, in the temple of our lives. How many a
life, seen as He sees it, is really one long en
thronement of self and dethronement of Him !

IS IT ALL A MYSTERY? 17
We will give Him our worship, but will not let
Him rule absolutely over us as King. Indeed
it sometimes looks as if we were trying to find
out how much sinful self-will God will endure in
us without striking us down ! He is ever seeking
to spare us, but if we will still go on in our self-
chosen way, we not only provoke Him to smite,
we compel Him to do it — compel Him, unless all
righteousness is to be cast down ashamed, and
sin is to be the unchallenged ruler of the world.
But if we thus challenge God to combat, by
building for ourselves houses of pride into which
no entry is to be given to Him, is it any wonder
that, through His accepting the challenge, the
earth is full of wailing, and that life everywhere
is marked by lonely breadths of utter desolation ?
Better a thousand times to suffer the sharpest
sorrows here, if they do but lead to repentant
faith, and so to heaven at last.
Through pain to peace. Through weariness to rest —
That Love may seek thee, Love comes darkly dressed :
Neglected, spurned, she smites thee, blow on blow,
Until she sees thee lying crushed and low ;
Then shows thee, hid within her yearning breast,
The healing balm thou else couldst never know.

SOUL-HEALING FIRST

The Cry
The mistakes of my life have been many.
The sins of my heart have been more,
And I scarce can see for weeping ;
But I'll knock at the open door.
I am lowest of those that seek Him,
I am weakest of those who pray ;
But I come as the Saviour bids me,
And He will not say me nay.

U. L. Bailey.

The Answer

Rest, weary heart !
The penalty is borne, the ransom paid,
For all thy sins full satisfaction made !
Strive not to do thyself what Christ has done,
Claim the free gift, and make the joy thine own ;
No more by pangs of guilt and fear distrest,
Rest ! calmly rest !
H. L. L.

Ill
SOUL-HEALING FIRST
IT would be both utterly cruel and grievously
unjust to say that all calamities are retri
butions for sin ; and yet the tendency to say
this is very common and very old. Job's self-
complacent friends accused him of being a
hypocrite whom God was punishing for some
sins which he would not confess. When some
men told Jesus of Pilate's slaughter of the Gali
leans, He knew their secret thought that prompted
the remark, and said, " Suppose ye that these
men were sinners above all the Galileans because
they suffered such things ? I tell you nay." l
Even His own disciples showed the same foolish
misinterpretation of providence when they asked
regarding the man blind from birth, " Master,
who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was
born blind ? " 8 and He told them that it was
not a case of retribution at all, but " that the
works of God should be made manifest in him."
That calamities are sometimes retributions
1 Luke xiii. 2. 2JJohn ix. 2.

22 SOUL-HEALING FIRST
cannot be denied. The Bible is full of illus
trations of that fact. But wherever the retri
bution has been seen, the sin for which it was a
retribution was also clearly shown. Men were
not left to imagine the sin, or to infer it. The
sin was patent before the retribution came.
Just for this reason it is that God's chastenings
are so often called His " rebukes." Christ Him
self recognised this fact when He said to the man
whom He healed of a lameness that had lasted
eight-and- thirty years, " Behold, thou art made
whole, sin no more lest a worse thing come unto
thee." l He was pointing back to some early sin
in which the cripple had been living nearly forty
years before, a sin unknown to or forgotten by
all else.
We have no such knowledge of other men's
guilty past, and even though we had, that would
not justify us in declaring that any calamity
befalling them was God's retribution for it : and
yet we have a large class of people who are great
" discoverers of judgment," and can tell at once
why any neighbour has been visited with sudden
calamity, though they would bitterly resent
such a verdict if passed by others upon them.
Still, though we dare not see positive retribu
tion in the case of others, we may often see it
in our own ; for conscience tells us many things
1 John v. 13.

SOUL-HEALING FIRST 23
that none beside us know, or even suspect. Was
it not this working of conscience that Jesus saw
in the palsied sufferer laid at His feet, to whom
His first word was " Son, be of good cheer,
thy sins are forgiven thee " ? 1 To all the by
standers, that sufferer's case was only a case of
ordinary physical disease ; but the Lord saw
before Him not merely a sufferer in body but a
sufferer in soul, and He knew that the soul-
suffering was the deeper of the two. His words
to the poor cripple seemed to the onlookers an
evading of the point. Their unspoken thought
was that He was trying to hide His incompetence
to treat the bodily ailment by pretending to give
a spiritual healing, the reality or unreality of
which none of them could test. Probably only
two of all that crowd knew the real facts ; one,
the sufferer himself ; the other, the thought-
reading and life-reading Christ. These two knew
that the disease was the positive result of some
course of sin lying far back in the past, but
perpetuating itself in his prematurely wasted
frame. This sufferer was always saying to
himself, " My sin is ever before me," and Christ
knew well that the word of Forgiveness was the
great word he was longing to hear.
This is a view of suffering which cannot be
overlooked. There is many a sufferer in the
* Matt. ix. 2.

24 SOUL-HEALING FIRST
world to-day who is receiving the commiseration
of friends in what they regard as a pure calamity
implying no blame in the life it strikes, whereas,
if he chose, he could tell them that they are
quite mistaking the case. He knows, and his
doctor knows, that he is only reaping what he
sowed long before. He is " made to possess the
iniquities of his youth," * and feeling, perhaps
for the first time, the force of the old rebuke,
" Thy way and thy doings have procured these
things unto thee ; know therefore and see that
it is an evil thing and a bitter that thou hast
forsaken Me, saith the Lord." 8 His friends
wonder at the calmness with which he bears his
sufferings, but the reason of his uncomplaining
patience is that he is every day saying to himself
" I deserve them all." He does not wonder at
God's chastening for his sin ; he only wonders
that the chastisement is not a thousand times
more severe.
What is needed in a case like this ? The very
first thing needed is not a Healer's but a Saviour's
word, a word of redeeming and forgiving Grace.
Thousands have heard that word, for the first
time, on beds of pain. It is a word which any
man may hear if only he opens his heart-ear to
listen to it. "I acknowledged my transgressions
to the Lord," said David. What came next ?
1 Job xiii. 26. * Jer. iv. 18, ii. 19.

SOUL-HEALING FIRST 25
" And Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin." *
There is the blessed immediacy of Divine For
giveness. There is no recrimination, no hesita
tion, no exception in it : and, best of all, there
is no delay. The very moment that the prodigal
came back in tears to his long-forsaken home,
he found himself folded in a father's arms. The
reception was immediate, and it was overflowingly
joyful too. And any sin-smitten sufferer, be he
who he may, as he lies full of remorse for a wasted
past, or sits among the wreckage of all his earthly
ambitions — whatever else he believes, may and
ought to " believe in the forgiveness of sins," a
forgiveness as complete as God can make it, and
to be had in the first moment of his faith in
Christ's atoning blood.
Thank God ! there is no sinful heart in all
the world that may not find this tender mercy
at the hands of the saving Christ. The same
voice that brought Lazarus to life when he had
been four days dead can restore to life a soul
that has been fourscore years dead in sin. Old
sins, however old, are not so old as God's ever
lasting mercy ; and strong sins, however strong,
are not so strong as His Omnipotent Grace.
If suffering leads to penitence, and penitence
to faith, and faith to pardon, and pardon to
peace, the merciful meaning of the suffering
1 Ps. xxxii. 5.

26 SOUL-HEALING FIRST
becomes very plain. It may be punishment, but
it is far more than that. It is the seeking Saviour
who " searches out His sheep where they are
scattered in the cloudy and dark day," making
a loving attempt to bring the wanderer home.
He has no delight in avenging, but He has an
infinite delight in saving ; and all that He means
by letting sore suffering come is that in the
pain and darkness the memory of a forgotten
Father may rise in winning freshness within the
breast, and lead us back to Him. A great
sufferer once was asked what his experience of
God had been, as he lay in weakness and peni
tence upon his bed ; and his reply was this,
" Oh ! He is a great Forgiver, He is a great
Forgiver." He had heard the voice of the saving
Christ saying, " Son, be of good cheer, thy sins
are forgiven thee." 'That voice is always crying
" Come home ! Come home ! " and oh ! how
longingly He is waiting for a response ! If He
lays us low, it is only that He may lift us up.
Surely it is a shame that we give Him so much
trouble to do it.
But what was it that the great Lord of for
giveness said to the sinful woman at Jacob's
well?1 It was not "If thou knewest the gift
of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give
me to drink, thou wouldst ask of Him and He
1 John iv. io.

SOUL-HEALING FIRST 27
would give thee living water." It was some
thing better than that, " Thou wouldst have
asked, and He would have given thee " ; as much
as to say " the great blessing of everlasting life
might already have been thine ; the past five
minutes might have sufficed to make thee a
happy partaker both of pardon and of peace."
One knock at the door would have opened wide
The home so dear to your heart's desires ;
And the hours you spent in the porch outside
Might have glowed by the household fires.
G. Matheson.

SAD HEART AND WEARY FEET

Thus said the Lord, " Thy days of health are over,"
And, like the mist, my vigour fled away,
Till but a feeble shadow was remaining,
A fragile form fast hasting to decay.
The May of life, with all its blooming flowers,
The joy of life, in colours bright arrayed.
The hopes of life, in all their airy promise —
I saw them in the distance slowly fade.
Then sighs of sorrow in my heart would rise,
And silent tears would overflow my eyes ;
But a warm sunbeam from a higher sphere
Stole through the gloom, and dried up every tear.
" Is this Thy will, Good Lord ? the strife is o'er; —
Thy servant weeps no more." Mowes, H.L.L.

IV
SAD HEART AND WEARY FEET
RETRIBUTIVE sufferings— the sufferings
which are plainly rebukes for some special
sin — may possibly be more numerous than an
outsider knows ; but, after all, they are excep
tions only, and not the rule. Disease, accident,
bereavement, loss come for the most part without
any such explanation of them being possible.
They cannot be regarded as sin-brought, but
only as God-sent ; sent by Him not to punish
sin, but in some cases possibly to prevent future
sin, and in every case to work out some undreamt
of good. They are not an emptying of vials of
wrath. They are the very reverse of that, the
discipline of a far-seeing and tender Love.
This is specially true of that large class of
sufferings that are almost life-long ; beginning
in early youth, and lasting on through weary
years till the very end. It may be that they can
sometimes be accounted for by heredity, the
unconscious transmission of an enfeebled con-
31

32 SAD HEART AND WEARY FEET
stitution. It is possible that in some cases the
sins of fathers and grandfathers may be thus
visited on children and children's children ; but
in most cases there is no proof of this whatever,
at least none that any human eye can detect.
The only thing that can be said is that the
suffering is " according to the Will of God " :
and yet that is not a hard, cold, unsympathetic,
relentless Will ; for, all through the weary years
His eye is on a glorious purpose which He is
patiently working out — " I know the thoughts
which I think toward you, thoughts of peace
and not of evil, to give you an expected end " : '
and the " end " He has in view is not just the
ripened perfection of a distant heaven, but the
sanctifying and beautifying of the character here
and now ; and so it is often found that the
brightest Christians anywhere to be met are those
who have been laid on sick-beds for long years
in utter weakness and in almost hourly pain.
If it is the strange mystery of grace that
" Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth," then
those whom He loveth much He chasteneth
much, and they whom He chasteneth most are
the dearest of them all.
But nothing tries faith and patience more
keenly than a discipline like this. A long-
drawn-out sickness is worse to bear than a short
1 Jer. xxix. ii.

SAD HEART AND WEARY fEEf 33
one much severer while it lasts. Job could bear
patiently a perfect cataract of calamities that
were all compressed into the compass of a single
day ; but when God's afflicting Hand pressed
him lower day after day, and he saw no end
of his misery but the grave, his faith gave way,
he cursed his life, and bitterly wished he had
never been born. It is not the intensity of
suffering but the weary length of it that most
sorely depresses the heart. Even where faith
does not give way, and the long weariness is
accepted as God's good and perfect will, the
strain of it is often acutely felt. That very saintly
man Dr. Payson gave his experience of this
when he wrote, " Every night death comes and
stands beside my bed in the form of terrible con
vulsions, each one of which threatens to separate
soul from body, and these continue to grow
worse and worse till every bone is aching with pain,
leaving me with the certainty that I shall have
it all to endure the next night again." But he
could add, " While my body is thus tortured my
soul is perfectly happy, more happy than I can
express ; my joy in God so abounds as to make
my sufferings not only bearable but welcome."
Once, when visiting a sick parishioner, he some
what abruptly said, " Do you know why God
lays people down upon their backs ? " ; and, on
the sufferer saying he had never thought of it,
3

34 SAD HEART AND WEARY FEET
he replied, " I can tell you the reason ; it is just
that they may look straight up." That was one
of the precious lessons God had taught him on
his bed of pain.
Many of God's children are learning it still.
If not so continuously racked with pain, they
have yet been kept almost life-long prisoners in
the grip of ill-health, shut out from life's work,
and from life's enjoyments too, laid low in sick
rooms, needing the constant ministry of other
hands, weary of their own helplessness, and
saying sometimes, with subdued yet passionate
utterance, " Oh for just one week of perfect
health ! "
Do they suffer needlessly, these patient souls ?
Nay, verily. The Lord who loves them is giving
them grand compensations and great opportun
ities as well. They are larger receivers than
many. They have more of His sanctifying and
consoling grace. They are more intimately in
fellowship with the Man of Sorrows. They get
more frequent secret visits from Him. And
they are larger givers too. They reflect more
of His graciousness upon all who see their faith
and patience and trust. Their daily lives are
preachers of the power of Christ to give what is
better than " perfect health," His own " perfect
peace," a sweet peace that only shines the more
beautifully over lines of pain.

SAD HEART AND WEARY FEET 35
Many, like Stephen, are wearing in the midst
of agony " the face of an angel." From their
own experience they can tell that sorrow brings
Christ closer to the heart than joy can do, and
that we get to know Him better in the darkness
than in the day. The angel of peace comes
sometimes to them at dead of night, when they
lie tossing uneasily in weary pain ; and, bending
over them, brings the " white stone on which
is written the new name which no man knoweth
saving he that receiveth it."
It is not, however, to the weak and sickly
alone that life is often only a long weariness.
There are others who find it so, though they
receive small sympathy compared with that
which is lavished on the sick. They are silent
sufferers whose heart-ache few suspect and
fewer fully know — I mean that large class on
whom has fallen the burden of caring for others
too feeble or too thriftless to care for themselves,
and whose unceasing, self-sacrificing toil is often
very thanklessly received. When a sudden
calamity overtakes a home, or when widowhood
leaves an invalid mother helpless under the
burden of household provision, and the whole
family has to depend upon the energy of an
elder daughter, how often the heavy load is laid
quite unconcernedly upon the shoulders willing
to bear it, without any thought of how this

36 SAD HEART AND WEARY FEET
new, unlooked-for, and great responsibility may
be utterly blighting that daughter's life. It is
looked upon as a matter of course that she
should take upon herself the care of all the rest ;
and nobly often is that duty done. She turns
capable hands to everything, and goes about
her work in the home with a smiling face, but
there is a secret pang in her heart which she
never reveals. No one suspects the greatness
of the sacrifice she is making for those she loves,
or knows that for them she has resigned some
treasured hope dearer to her than life. No one
notices that she is nailed to a cross. She conse
crates herself to unappreciated self-denials, her
lot is bound up with thankless souls ; and
though she does not murmur, it is a daily martyr
dom. She goes through it bravely and lovingly
but with a heart-weariness not shown by word
or sign, dedicating her best years to unremitting
devotion to those who are too selfish to consider
how much they exact, and are barely grateful
for the service so nobly done. She has the pang
of martyrdom without the palm.
Brave noble hearts ! self-sacrificing, self-sur
rendering, but feeling every day how much the
self-surrender costs — how greatly the angels must
love them ! how kindly the eye of Christ must
be bent upon them ! and how large will be their
recompense in the all-revealing Day ! These

SAD HEART AND WEARY FEET 37
weary years of self-effacement here, how grandly
they will be compensated when all is done !
O thou so weary of thy self-denials,
And fainting so beneath thy little cross !
Is it so hard to bear thy daily trials.
To count all earthly things a gainful loss ?
What if thou always suffer tribulation ?
What if thy painful heart-aches never cease ?
The gaining of the Quiet Habitation
Shall gather thee to Everlasting Peace.

THE REFINER'S FIRE

Lord I a whole long day of pain
Now at last is o'er ;
Darkness bringing weary strain
Comes to me once more.
Round me falls the evening gloom, .
Sights and sounds all cease ;
But within this narrow room
Night will bring no peace.
Come then, Jesus ! o'er me bend,
And my spirit cheer ;
From all faithless thoughts defend,
Let me feel Thee near.
Then if I must wake or weep
All the long night through,
Thou the watch with me wilt keep.
Friend and Guardian true I
Lyra Germanictu

THE REFINER'S FIRE
FOR God's afflicted children there is a very
deep consolation in those frequently re
peated emblems of suffering which liken it to a
great Refiner's fire, in which He purifies his
gold. " I will refine them as silver is refined,
and try them as gold is tried." l This is a some
times-forgotten part of Christ's redeeming and
restoring work. We often think so exclusively
of Him as a Saviour of the lost, that we forget
another equally divine and equally necessary
part of His mission — to be a Sanctifier of the
saved. He wants to bring us a thorough-going
Redemption, not a mere surface-plaster for the
soul's disease. Loving enough to go seeking
the lost however far they stray, and to lift them
however low they lie, He is yet so Holy that He
will tolerate no sin in His rescued ones. He will
be a Refiner as well as a Redeemer, burning all
1 Zech. xiii. 9.
4i

42 THE REFINER'S FIRE
sin out of them that they may be " pure as He
Himself is pure."
He has many ways of doing this. He does it
by the power of His cleansing Word — by the
attractive force of His bright example, by the
presence of His Spirit in the heart, and by the
varied outward means of enlightenment and
appeal ; but He does it also by the sore afflictions
of His hand : and every child of the kingdom
knows how purifying these afflictions may be
come, how quickly they reveal the dross that
mingles with the gold, and how effectually the
dross is burned away.
There is far more earthly dross in the hearts
of the best Christians than they know till the
fire reveals it. What impatience did the fire
reveal even in so wonderfully patient a man as
Job ! What secret atheism it revealed even in
so good a man" as Asaph ! But the same heat
that reveals the dross removes it too : and it may
comfort some who are in the furnace and are
alarmed at what the fire is revealing to them,
to remember that they see their evil only because
God is in the act of taking it away, in order that
He may bring them forth as gold so purified that
it can be fashioned into " vessels of honour " to
His eternal praise.
It is indeed a mortifying proof of what rebel
lious and intractable children of the Father we

THE REFINER'S FIRE 43
are, that He needs to put us through so sore a
discipline before He can use us for any high
end. Still, to be sanctified in any way is blessing
to us as well as glory to Him ; and many a heart
has welcomed the suffering that led to a purer
and worthier life ; instead of praying for a
mitigation of the heat, has prayed that at any
cost, by any fire, the dross of sin might be
thoroughly purged away ; and has said, like
Thomas Arnold in his last hours of agony, " I
thank God for pain."
In every really earnest soul the greatest longing
must be to be quit of sin. The supreme attrac
tion of heaven itself is not its peace and glory,
but the absolute sinlessness of its blessed life.
But sin cannot die till the love of sin has
first been killed : and must there not, there
fore, be a precious value in the sore earthly
sufferings which so often take this love of sin
away ?
The refining process is not a quick one. It
cannot be completed in an hour or two. The
length of the process thus becomes a trial to
patience, as well as to faith. But if we say to
a sufferer, " Be patient with God," we must also
say, " and think how patient God is with you."
Is not this one explanation at least of the length
of time that some of His suffering ones are kept
in the fire ? He wants to have them very pure,

44 THE REFINER'S FIRE
and so He increases the heat till, looking on the
molten gold, He sees on its clear surface a re
flection of Himself.
Judging by their prayers, one would think
that some Christians suppose that God keeps a
sort of heavenly warehouse with faith, patience,
meekness, love, holiness, put up in packets ready
for purchasers, and that just as they would go
into a perfumer's shop here below, so they can
go to God and ask for this or that beautifying
grace in the expectation that it will be delivered
to them at once. Christian graces are never
obtained in that immediate way. They are the
fruit of discipline, and the discipline is often pain.
Prayers for heavenly graces will be answered ;
but the answer will be training, and not im
mediate gift.
In all this, however, we must remember that
only where there is real gold to work upon will
any trouble be taken to make it pure : which
is but another way of saying that we must be
truly His children before His refining process
can begin. It is not the refining that makes us
His. It is because we are already His that He
refines us to make us more like Himself. If
there is not real metal among the dross, there
would be no use for the fire, and no result from
the burning.
Does not this explain why we see many un-

THE REFINER'S FIRE 45
christian sufferers come out of affliction ho better
than they were before ? Not every fire is a
Refiner's fire ; and not everything that goes into
a fire is purified. Some men come out of the fire
of suffering as bricks come out of the brick-kiln,
the harder for the burning. Because there is no
gold in them, there is nothing to refine. The
comfort of feeling that the fire is really a refining
one belongs only to the children of the kingdom.
But in them it is always seen that sore trial
makes common Christians into uncommon saints,
and fits them for being used in uncommon service.
The men whose names now stand for the finest
types of heroic godliness were all men who had
some severe discipline of suffering to undergo.
Only great trials made them the great saints
they became.
Schubert said that of all his compositions the
best had been written in days when he had most
suffering to endure. The same may be said of
David's Psalms and Paul's Epistles. The best
and most helpful of the Psalms were written in
the heart's blood mingled with tears. The
richest and most comforting of Paul's Epistles
came from an underground dungeon in Rome.
So, still, deep suffering may be giving to many
not only a richer personal experience of Christ's
infinite grace, and a truer sympathy with other
sufferers, but also a larger power for service, and

46 THE REFINER'S FIRE
opportunities of usefulness which perhaps they
would have altogether missed had their sufferings
been less.
Some who are in the fining-pot of trial are
tempted to complain, and ask how a loving God
can find it in His heart to make them suffer so :
but they know not what their loss would be if
the fire should be put out, or even be suffered to
cool. We do not see how present sorrow can
be blessing at the end : but can any man see
Canaan while still in Egypt ? or Elim while
still encamped at Marah ? Trust God to make
no mistakes. Let Him take His own way and
His own wise time, and the completion of the
work will justify the process, and fill the lips
with song.
The apostle Peter, who knew well from ex
perience what he was speaking about, put this
whole matter into short compass when he said,
" That the trial of your faith, being much more
precious than of gold which perisheth, though it
be tried with fire, may be found unto praise and
honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus
Christ." Are we willing to be thus refined ? willing to
have the very last remains of dross purged out
of us ? Then, nothing is more certain than this,
that, as we look down from the peacefulness of
heaven to the long sore discipline of earthly

THE REFINER'S FIRE 47
days, we shall bless Him with full hearts for the
" fining-pot " and for the " fire."
Pain's furnace-heat within me quivers ;
God's breath upon the flame doth blow ;
And all my heart in anguish shivers.
And trembles at the fiery glow :
And yet I whisper, " As God will " ;
And in His hottest fire am still. Julius Sturm.

SUNSHINE ON THE CLOUD

The way is dark, my Father : cloud on cloud
Is gathering thickly o'er my head, and loud
The thunder roars above me. See, I stand
Like one bewildered ; Father, take my hand.
And through the gloom lead safely home
Thy child.
The way is dark, my child, but leads to light ;
I would not have thee always walk by sight.
My dealings now thou canst not understand ?
I meant it so — but I will take thy hand,
And through the night lead up to light
My child. The Changed Cross.
O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to Thee,
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain
That morn shall tearless be. G. Matheson.

VI
SUNSHINE ON THE CLOUD
THE rainbow is one of the most beautiful
things God ever made, and His causing
it to shine out on Noah just when his appre
hension of further judgment was filling him with
fear was one of the most beautiful things God
ever did. The tender thoughtfulness of that
sign of mercy comforted Noah, and it has com
forted thousands since. It was in a beautifully
human way, too, that God spoke of it : " When
I bring a cloud over the earth, the bow shall be
seen in the cloud, and I will look upon it, and
remember my covenant." ' God's eyes and our
eyes looking on the same thing at the same
moment — that is a beautiful thought ; but there
is a more comforting one still, that He sees the
bow where our weak and blind eyes do not see
it at all.
This bow of covenant mercy spans the whole
Bible from Genesis to Revelation, resting, at one
1 Gen. ix. 14.
51

52 SUNSHINE ON THE CLOUD
end, on the sodden earth of Ararat, at the other
on the glowing throne of heaven, and over
arching all the space between. We see it in the
consoling words, eighteen hundred years after the
Flood, "As I have sworn that the waters of
Noah shall no more go over the earth, so have I
sworn that I will not be wroth with thee, nor
rebuke thee " ; x and after another eight hundred
years we see it in the vision of the rapt apostle
John, " A Throne was set in heaven, and One
sat upon the Throne, and there was a rainbow
round about the Throne, in sight like unto an
emerald " : * the old sign of God's eternal faith
fulness thus appearing in heaven itself. This
rainbow round the Throne differed from all
others in having only one colour instead of
seven ; and yet that difference only brings out
the meaning of it more distinctly. For we must
read Bible symbols with Eastern and not
Western eyes ; and, in Oriental thought, green
is the universally accepted emblem of faithful
ness and truth. Man's faithfulness to God has
always been a miserable failure. The best saints
have failed, the noblest patriarchs, the holiest
apostles have failed ; but God's faithfulness to
His own promises has never failed, and never
can. Is there not here a great message of peace and
1 Isa. liv. 9. a Rev. iv. 3.

SUNSHINE ON THE CLOUD 53
hope for all suffering hearts ? We would all fain
have rainbows without clouds ; but we cannot.
Tie sun needs a dark cloud to print its colours
on, and God needs a dark background of sorrow
to make His love shine out to view. The darker
the cloud, the brighter is the bow : and one
reason why He so often lets clouds grow heavier
and darker over us is just to make us see His
love as a more undeniable and conspicuous thing.
A beautiful illustration of this can be found in
the history of that sorely tried patriarch Jacob.
A thick cloud came down upon him when his
beloved Rachel died, and Joseph was stolen
and supposed to be dead too. Then, on the back
of these griefs, came another still. There was a
famine in the land. Death seemed to be waiting
for him and all his house. There was a bow
upon the cloud even then, and God was looking
upon it, but Jacob could not see it. It was too
faint for his tear-dimmed eyes to distinguish ;
and the reason of that was that the cloud was
not yet dark enough to show it. So God pro
ceeded to make it darker still. Jacob has to
send his sons into Egypt for bread. They are
long in coming back. He is full of disquietude
and alarm. By-and-by they return, but only
to tell him that they had to leave Simeon behind
in prison, and that the ruler of Egypt spoke
roughly to them, and demanded Benjamin too.

54 SUNSHINE ON THE CLOUD
The poor old patriarch breaks down on hearing
this. He could not part with Benjamin, the
son he loved best of all ; and he cries, " I
will not have the cloud become any darker than
it is, Benjamin shall not go." But God means
that the cloud shall become denser still . Benj amin
has to be sent away, the aged father's heart
almost breaking as he says, " Ye will bring down
my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave ; all
these things are against me."
For many a weary week thereafter the cloud
gets thicker and thicker, till, at last, when hope
is almost gone, the sun shines out, and against
the thickest darkness of all the bow is seen.
" Joseph is yet alive," they tell him ; and he
well-nigh faints with joy. The bow is so bright
it almost dazzles his eyes : but, the more steadily
he looks, the clearer becomes his conviction that
instead of all things being " against him," all
things had been " working together " for a
higher good than he had ever imagined could
be his. He looked at last where God had been
looking all along, and then he gained what he
might have had long before, the peace of a heart
that was letting God take His own way with it,
and resting in Him. All the time that he had
been looking on his sorrows alone, his faithful
God had been planning for the appearing of the
bow. So it ever is.

SUNSHINE ON THE CLOUD 55
"In a little wrath I hid my face from thee
for a moment," there is the cloud — " but with
everlasting kindness I will have mercy upon
thee," l there is the bow. " I will visit their trans
gressions with a rod," there is the cloud — " never
theless my loving kindness I will not take away,
nor suffer my faithfulness to fail," ! there is the bow.
" Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had
not died," there was the cloud — " Said I not unto
thee that, if thou wouldst believe, thou shouldst
see the glory of God ? " J there was the bow. " In
the world ye shall have tribulation," there is the
cloud — " but be of good cheer, in me ye shall
have peace," * there is the bow. " What I do
thou knowest not now," there is the cloud — " but
thou shalt know hereafter," B there is the bow.
" Ye now therefore have sorrow," there is the
cloud — " but I will see you again and your heart
shall rejoice," 8 there is the bow. No cloud what
ever, either of sin or of sorrow, can be overhead
that is not brightened by an assurance of God's
all-pardoning Grace and all-sufficing Peace.
There is no blessing in affliction till the love of
God is seen shining on it. The cloud does not
produce the rainbow without the sun ; but when
we see the brilliant arch that spans the cloud,
we see what glorifies the cloud, and we cease to
1 Isa. liv. 8. 2 Ps. lxxxix. 33. 3 John xi. 40.
' John xvi. 33. B John xiii. 7. " John xvi. 32.

56 SUNSHINE ON THE CLOUD
think of the cloud, we see only the bow. Looking
at the Love that overarches sorrow, the sorrow
almost disappears ; it is " turned into joy."
Sometimes, indeed, we can scarcely see the bow,
it is too dim and indistinct ; but the brightness
increases just as the cloud gets more intensely
dark. Perhaps this is the reason why God so
often thickens our clouds till they become black
as night. Only let us realise that though our
eyes cannot see the brightness God's eye does ;
He is always looking on it, and is " ever mindful
of His covenant."
What a wealth of spiritual suggestiveness lies
also in the fact that the rainbow, as seen by us,
is only half the circle, and in so far is incomplete.
But the reason for that is that we are looking
at it from the level of the earth. Those who have
seen it from a high mountain-peak, and those
who have seen it when voyaging in the upper
air, with clouds below them as well as above,
have told us that as they saw it, the circle was
complete. Carrying this thought with us as we
read again the words, " there was a rainbow
round about the Throne," does it not suggest
the truth that whereas, here on earth, we cannot
see the whole compass of God's love, when lifted
higher and made to sit in heavenly places we
\ shall see all that is now hidden from our view,
\ shall " know even as also we are known " ? Q

SUNSHINE ON THE CLOUD 57
sorrowing hearts, wait till you get higher up, and
all apparent imperfection in the love of God
will wholly disappear ! But this is kept as a
glad surprise for the heavenly eye, the eye that
can look upon the Love of God from the very
centre of that Love, the Throne of Jesus Christ.
It is worth remembering, too, how often we
fear the dark clouds that are coming near, and
yet can praise God for them after they have
passed ; for they have not broken in judgment,
but " in blessings on our head." Looking at
them after they have gone down into the calm
golden west, with the sunshine filling them
through and through, they seem only like gar
ments of angels thrown off upon the purple sky.
How often, with the first symptoms of some grave
bodily disease, there is a nameless dread, and the
dread increases as the symptoms become more
unmistakable ! but how often, as the malady
goes on, there comes a sweet acquiescence in the
will of God, and His angels come and minister
around the bed of pain ! So with the threatened
crushing of fondest hopes, or the clear certainty
that those we love must die, we shudder and
start, and ask frantically if the dark misery
cannot be averted yet. When the tear falls
from a mother's eye as she looks on the wasted
face of her child, and listens to its breathing, and
realises for the first time that a stronger arm

58 SUNSHINE ON THE CLOUD
than hers is drawing her little darling away ;
when a woe-stricken husband sees the dear face
he has loved so long grow paler and thinner
every day, and marks the anguish that she
herself would fain conceal, these clouds are so
thick and dark that it seems impossible they can
ever be brightened even by God Himself. And
yet how many a tear-dimmed eye has seen the
bow upon them after all, and discovered, ere
long, that Love Divine was behind the darkness,
only waiting for the right moment to reveal its
consoling power !
The truth is that God cannot give us His best
till we are willing calmly to accept His worst.
Even Divine power cannot draw the full Christ- •
likeness in us except by the deep shadows that
bring out the light. It was complete ignorance
of the laws of art that made Queen Elizabeth
demand that the artist should paint her portrait
without any shadows on the canvas ; and she
got royally angry with him when he told her
it could not be done. Alas ! how many of us
get angry with God for the same reason, and
with as little excuse !
One of the old Psalms says of God that " He
maketh the clouds His chariot " ; and it is in
that dark chariot that He often pays visits to
His dearest friends ; but, dark-looking as it is,
what was said of Solomon's chariot is always

SUNSHINE ON THE CLOUD 59
true of His : " The midst thereof is paved with
ove." Come then when He may in the dark
cloud, it is always Love He brings along with
Him, nay it is Love that brings Him to the dark
ened heart. He is not clothed in black though
His chariot is, for it is a love-visit that He pays.
And even though His last visit of all should be
in a chariot of cloud, that will be only a love-
visit too, a joyful coming to take His children
home from school, to be " for ever with the
Lord." O Thou Who art our life,
Be with us through the strife ;
Thy holy head by earth's fierce storms was bowed :
Raise Thou our eyes above,
To see a Father's love
Beam, like the bow of promise, through the cloud.
Sarah E. Miles.

EVEN SO, FATHER"

O Thou whose sacred feet have trod
The thorny path of woe.
Forbid that I should slight the rod.
Or faint beneath the blow.
Give me the spirit of Thy trust,
To suffer as a son ;
To say, though lying in the dust,
Father I Thy will be done ! J. D. Burns.
O Blessed life ! the heart at rest
When all without tumultuous seems,
That trusts a Higher Will, and deems
That Higher Will the wisest, best.
W. T. Matson.

VII
"EVEN SO, FATHER"
THE largest part of the Heavenly Father's
training of His children consists in teaching
them joyful obedience to His commanding will ;
but a very large part of it consists also in teaching
them joyful acquiescence in His disposing will :
and Jesus, as the perfect Son, was a bright
example of both.
In Matthew's gospel we read: " In that hour
Jesus answered, and said, I thank Thee, Father,
that Thou hast hid these things from the wise
and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.
Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy
sight."1 Who did He "answer"? Was it a
voice from heaven ? or from the disciples ? or
from the crowd ? Was it not rather a voice
from His own questioning heart ? He was
feeling a perfectly human disappointment with
the poor result of His mission as yet, the meagre
response the world was making to His lovey and
1 Matt. xi. 26.
63

64 "EVEN SO, FATHER"
He was asking Himself, " Why should this be
so ? " But He instantly answered His own
question by one all-sufficing upward look of
absolute trust in the Father who had sent Him.
The Lord Jesus was standing there, as we have
often to stand, face to face with the unexplained
will of God ; but His attitude to that will was
not what ours so often is, an attitude of criticism
or complaint ; it was an attitude of joyful
acquiescence. If a shade of disappointment
passed for a moment over His human heart, the
same moment the calming thought rose up,
" It is my Father's will alone with which I have
to do, I will trust that will to the uttermost,"
and immediately the trust broke out into thanks
giving and praise.
There is our Example, when confronted with
the disappointments of life. Too often we let
these things embitter us, and, if we do not
actually accuse God of injustice, we come peri
lously near to that in the spirit of our lamentations.
Occasionally there may be faint gleams of
light in the darkness ; some merciful reasons
can be guessed at for the blight of hope, reasons
sufficient to steady us a little, if not to bring
us perfect peace. But often there is not even
so much as this. There is nothing to relieve the
heart-perplexity, all is uncheered gloom, without
and within. Just then it is that the example

"EVEN SO, FATHER" 65
of Jesus becomes our greatest help. When, with
all our intentness of looking, we cannot see one
ray of light, cannot discover either what we have
been chastened for or what good the chastening
can do, there is still one thing left for the wounded
heart to do — and that the best thing of all — to
fall back, even weeping, upon the Smiter's heart
of love, and say, " Even so, Father, for so it
has seemed good in Thy sight."
These were the humblest, holiest, most rever
ential, most adoring words that were ever uttered
in this world : and what we need when con
fronted with unexplained disappointments in
life is just to echo them. They stand higher
even than those other words, " Not my will
but Thine be done," for in these there is struggle
as well as victory, but here the two wills are
running in the same plane. What we need is
not to have no will — that would not be human ;
not to have a rebellious will conquered — that is
not enough ; but to have our will absorbed, lost
in God's will, so completely absorbed that His
will and our will shall be absolutely the same.
This is one of the greatest things God can teach us,
and, if we are indeed His children, He will not
cease the teaching till the lesson has been learned
thoroughly. We are staggered, sometimes, as we look
around, by the strange way in which His Provi-
5

66 "EVEN SO, FATHER"
dence runs counter not only to what we expect,
but to all that we think right and good. Why
is one home overwhelmed by a constant suc
cession of sorrows, year after year, while other
homes beside it are completely exempt ? Why
does misfortune pursue one man constantly, do
what he will, while other men — not more upright,
not more prudent, not more sagacious, not more
God-fearing than he — perhaps far less — have
unbroken prosperity from first to last ? Why
does the hand of death so often smite the strong
and spare the weak ? Why are the young cut
down just as all the possibilities of a useful life
are opening out before them ? Why does God,
who seemed to have been specially preparing
them for His service, suddenly prevent their
entering on it, while the aged whose working
powers are gone are left lying for years in use
lessness, like stranded hulks embedded in the
sand, and falling to pieces inch by inch ? Why
is the parent taken away just when helpless
little ones most need a father's or a mother's
care ? or children cut down just when they are
twining themselves most firmly around a parent's
heart ? Why does the stroke of death so often
take away just the friend most beloved of all,
and most essential to the happiness of the home ?
If some stroke be needed, why should it be one
so terribly heavy, so inexpressibly severe ?

"EVEN SO, FATHER" 67
We ask these questions, and reason cannot
answer them : only faith can do it, the faith
that trusts where it cannot see, and, lifting a
tear-stained face to the face of God, says, " Even
so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight."
That was how the faith of Jesus responded
to the mystery of God's holy will : and He gives
us the key to His calmness in the one word
" Father." When He lifted up His eyes to look
to the heavenly side of the mystery, He saw the
" Lord of heaven and earth " doing His in
scrutable will ; but He saw far more than that.
The face that He saw was not merely the face
of a Sovereign, it was the face of a Father. The
high will of God He saw to be a Father's will.
" My Father Who is Love itself can be arranging
for me only that which is best " was the deepest
conviction and the deepest rest of His heart.
He " knew the Father " as none other did, and
therefore He could trust Him to the uttermost.
We too, in our poor measure, may " know the
Father," and, in exact proportion as we do, our
reason for calm trust will not be that we under
stand His ways, but that we understand Himself.
The apostle John could say to the suffering
Christians of his day, " I write unto you, little
children, because ye have known the Father." *
Could he say that to many of us, if he were
1 1 John ii. 13.

68 "EVEN SO, FATHER"
amongst us here to-day ? But all tears will
quickly be dried upon the face that is always
looking, as Christ's was, upon the face of the
Father who is in heaven.
One prayer I have — all prayers in one —
Since I am wholly Thine ;
Thy blessed will, O God, be done.
And let Thy will be mine I

THE MAN OF SORROWS

What grace, O Lord, and beauty shone
Around Thy steps below !
What patient love was seen in all
Thy life and death of woe !
For ever on Thy burdened heart
A weight of sorrow hung ;
Yet no ungentle murmuring word
Escaped Thy silent tongue.
E. Denny.
Lord, as to Thy dear cross we flee.
And plead to be forgiven,
So let Thy life our pattern be,
And form our souls for heaven.
G. H. Gurney.

VIII
THE MAN OF SORROWS
A MAN of sorrows, and acquainted with
grief " 1 — that was one of the signs by
which Israel was to know its Christ ; and only
the blindness of the eyes that looked on Jesus
of Nazareth prevented the recognition. It was
one of the glories and consolations of His Christ-
hood that He came amongst men and lived
amongst them to the last, as one familiar with
everything belonging to the sunless side of life,
its trials and its temptations, its deprivations and
its disappointments, its hardships and its tears :
and in the patient endurance and triumphant
faith of our Great Lord there are stars of hope
that light up the darkness of our own midnight
skies. He foresaw that we would need these
helps, and He knew that they would suffice.
" In the world ye shall have tribulation," but
"it is enough for the servant that he be as
his Master, and the disciple as his Lord," " If
1 Isa. liii. 3.
71

72 THE MAN OF SORROWS
they have called the Master of the house Beelzebub,
how much more them of His household ? " 1
Surely many disciples cannot be taking this lesson
home, else they would not be so full of amazed
dejection, and even of rebellion, under the
weight of their cross, as they often are.
You complain, perhaps, of your low position
in life. You had no good start, your early
advantages were miserably few, your career was
heavily handicapped from the very first. But
were you really born lower down than your
Master was, when He, the Crown and glory of
heaven, humbled Himself as no angel ever
did, and was born among the beasts of burden
in the stable of an inn ?
You complain, perhaps, of the hard usage
you have to endure at the hands of other men.
But can your life-lot compare for a moment in
this respect with the life-lot of your Lord ?
Occasionally men did seem to honour Him, but
when they crowded round Him it was only to
get, and not to give. Rich men, now and then,
asked Him to a feast, but not to show any love
to Him, only to gratify their own self-importance ;
for, as Christ clearly saw, beneath the mask of
hospitality there was only a poor curiosity or
patronising pride. He subsisted for years on
the charity of a few who " ministered to Him
1 Matt. x. 25.

THE MAN OF SORROWS 73
of their substance " ; He spoke of Himself as
being less home-nurtured than the foxes of the
desert or the fowls of the air : and yet He made
no complaint. He took all that as the lot
appointed for Him, and accepted it unmurmur-
ingly as His Father's will. Can you put the
Master's experience alongside of your own, and
say, " I am worse off than my Redeemer was " ?
Do you say, " There are sufferings in my lot
far harder to bear than these ; studied insults,
slanders, and affronts, the venomed shafts of
malicious tongues, accusing me secretly of what
I know to be absolutely false " ? Well, how
was it with Christ ? Is there anything that
can try the temper which He had not to endure ?
His purest motives were wilfully misconstrued.
His gracious miracles of love were ascribed to
the power of the devil. He was calumniated as a
revolutionary and a blasphemer. He was slan
dered as a glutton and a drunkard. The most
contumelious epithets were hurled at Him day
after day. And yet no word of anger escaped
His lips when treated so. He did not even say,
either to accuser or to disciple, that it was very
hard He should have such things to bear. He
calmly accepted the shame, and " committed
Himself to Him who judgeth righteously."
Surely there is comfort here for those disciples
still, whose sufferings are due only to their

74 THE MAN OF SORROWS
faithful loyalty to Him, a loyalty which exposes
them both to the hatred of the world and to petty
persecutions and mockeries at the hands of their
friends. Very clearly did the Master forewarn
His disciples that they would not have popu
larity in the world, any more than He : "If
they have hated me they will also hate you,"
" I am come to set a man at variance with his
father, and the daughter against her mother . . .
and a man's foes shall be they of his own house
hold." l However acute this kind of suffering
may be, it need not take us by surprise. It is
in the programme of the Kingdom.
It would be easy to escape it by treachery
to our Lord ; for, if we never disturb the world
by any practical protest against its sins, we will
not only be unmolested, but be admired as being
full of charity, free from all narrow-mindedness,
beautiful patterns of what Christians ought to
be ! But true confessors of the unworldly
Christ the world will not endure. It will hate and
defame and persecute them still just as it did
nineteen hundred years ago ; and if its weapons
are not fire and sword, they are weapons of even
keener edge, and whose wounds go deeper far.
What comfort has Christ for disciples suffering
so ? First of all, He says that such suffering
only proves that they belong to Him, " because
1 Matt. x. 35.

THE MAN OF SORROWS 73
I have chosen you- out of the world, therefore the
world hateth you." If they are not spared the
pain of defamation, they are not denied the
blessing of it, which is a clearer assurance that
they are really " His own." Further, they are
thus only proving their pedigree, showing that
they are in the long and glorious line of witnesses
whose record is on high : "So persecuted they
the prophets that were before you." And again,
cross-bearing here leads surely to crown-wearing
by-and-by. " Rejoice inasmuch as ye are par
takers of Christ's sufferings, that when His glory
shall be revealed ye may be glad also with ex
ceeding joy." Five minutes of heaven will
more than compensate for fifty years of suffering
here. There is still another region of experience in
which the thought of the Man of Sorrows becomes
an infinite consolation, the sufferings that can
not be traced to man's malevolence, but come
directly from the hand of God Himself. Can
Christ's example help us in such things as these ?
In this way it can — by reminding us that the
sorest of all His afflictions were those that could
be traced only to the smiting hand of His Father
in heaven. Why did He cry out, "My God,
My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me ? " "It
pleased the Lord to bruise Him, He hath put
Him to grief," is the only reply. The sting of

76 THE MAN OF SORROWS
his last sorrow was not that men were reviling
Him, nor that disciples were forsaking Him,
but that God seemed to be casting Him off.
He had known sorrows that came from earth ;
He had also known sorrows that came from
hell ; but the last and deepest sorrow was one
that came to Him from heaven : it was the cry
of a soul that felt itself abandoned and cast
away. How many of His disciples have passed
through that experience too, but passed through
it, as Christ did, into the calm of victory ! Do
you say, " I could bear easily any other grief
than this, but the face of God is hid, I get no
answer to my prayers, my hope is gone, I am
forsaken and cast away " ? Ah, poor soul !
these were the very feelings of your Lord upon the
cross, and even though you too have to wail out
your " lama sabachthani " into the ear of your
hidden God, you are not any more a castaway
than your Redeemer was ; for never was that
Son more inexpressibly dear to the Father's
heart or more intensely loved than just when He
felt as if shut out from that love for ever.
Men have been known to carry charms or
amulets as protections against all ills. Here is
a charm which, if we take it, and wear it next
the heart, will be an infallible exorcism against
all faint-heartedness and fear — Think of Christ :
and whenever you feel dejected because of the

THE MAN OF SORROWS 77
troubles of life, say to yourself, "If He was
tried and tempted in all points like as I am,
how near that brings Him to me, and me to
Him ! " Poor wounded soul ! as you grope
your way through the tangled briars, bleeding
afresh at every step, will it not comfort you to
see, on the blood-stained grass, signs that Another
Sufferer had been there before you, to discover
Who that Other was by recognising the foot
prints of your Lord Himself, and then to feel
that " in every pang that rends the heart, the
Man of Sorrows had a part " ? What a heart
His is to lean upon ! What a Pattern of holy
trust is His to copy !
The soul and the Saviour are divinely fitted,
each to each. He finds in sorrow His oppor
tunity : sorrow finds in Him its rest. Following
Him, we learn how to rise above our sorrows into
the calm of faith ; and how to get, at last, beyond
them into the calm of Heaven.
O Thou who died'st to give us life.
Full well to Thee is known
The Cross, and all the inner strife
Of those who weep alone,
And 'neath their burden well-nigh faint :
The aching heart's unspoken plaint
Finds echo in Thine own.
Paul Gerhardt.

THE DRUDGERY OF COMMON LIFE

Not on the towering mountain-peak
Crest-crowned with fiery glow
Do men the earth's rich harvests seek,
But in deep vales below.
Not for some glaring high emprise
Seek thou far-soaring wings ;
That faith is noblest in God's eyes
That bears a cross — and sings.

IX
THE DRUDGERY OF COMMON LIFE
IN writing words of comfort to weary hearts,
there is one large class whose burdens
cannot be overlooked, those who are weighed
down not by any acute suffering of body but by
the dreary monotony of the daily round, the
small household duties or petty cares that absorb
all time and energy, leave almost no room for
higher things, and yet show no great result when
all is done. Multitudes of these weary hearts
are every day chafing under their limitations, and
longing wistfully for some lifting of the load,
not so much for the sake of personal relief from
drudgery as that they may fulfil more nobly the
higher purposes of life. They would fain do
more for the glory of God in active usefulness to
men, but they are chained to daily tasks that
seem to shut them out from all opportunities
of service, and make their life look poor, and
profitless, and mean.
Very few people do really believe that they
81 6

82 THE DRUDGERY OF COMMON LIFE
are in their right position. Has not every one
of us a dream or vision of some happier and
nobler lot that might have been ours ? and do
we not sometimes think that it ought to have
been ours ? Sometimes we beat against our
prison-bars with a silent but deep heart-bitter
ness ; and sometimes we let our limitations
depress us to the verge of hopelessness, and life
becomes only one long weariness and pain.
But has God no use for us just where we are ?
Has He dealt unfairly or unkindly in putting
us where we are ? One thing, at least, is certain,
that if we do not serve our Lord and Master
where we are, we would not serve Him better
anywhere else. If it is He who has placed us
in this narrow and mean-looking sphere, He
knows it is the best of all places for us to occupy,
and He wants us to glorify Him by patient
obedience there. What He said to Israel long
ago about their forty years in the dreary stretches
of Arabian sand, He is saying to us when we
complain of that cribbed and hampered and
depressing experience which is our present lot :
" I am training thee to suffer that I may after
wards honour thee to rule, training thee to be
content with obscurity that I may hereafter
make thee shine, training thee to be faithful in
those things that are least, that thou mayest
be fit for the great things by-and-by." And if

THE DRUDGERY OF COMMON LIFE 83
there is one thing more than another, of a prac
tical kind, which we as Christian men and women
need to learn, it is this, that a devotion to
God which can adorn and sanctify the hardest
drudgery of life is not only a more difficult but
a far more honourable thing than that which
flares out only upon high occasions. Let weary
and discouraged hearts look up ! The Lord of
our lives makes no mistakes. He gives each
one of us the right place to fill, the right work to
do, the right load to bear, the right help in
bearing it, and the right reward at last for all
that is faithfully, however obscurely, done for
Him. These poor prosaic duties, these common-place
surroundings, these daily self-denials are God's
choice for you. They are the instruments of your
heavenly education, the channels of His grace,
the sacraments of His love. That place to which
you are chained, that grimy city, that narrow
lodging, that dingy office, that dull shop, that
dreary street, that uncongenial company — these
are the school for your training, and the altar
for your sacrifice, according to the will of God.
Believe that ; take them so, and as you look
upon them again, bright proofs of your Father's
love in one and all of them will turn your weari
ness into peace.
The same may be said of other kinds of dis-

84 THE DRUDGERY OF COMMON LIFE
appointment in life. The disappointed are a
great host, and their disappointments are not
confined to outward things. There are dis
appointed affections too. How many are doomed
to live lonely lives while the heart is craving the
closer companionships of love ! How many are
shut out, by no fault of theirs, from the deepest
and purest companionship the heart can know !
How often " a happy wedding " means that
some other man has missed the bride he dreamt
of, or that some other woman has missed the
bridegroom of her secret hopes ! Yet those who
have to tread a solitary path need neither be
unlovable nor unloved. In truth, they are
often exactly the reverse, and gain the unstinted
affection of many to whom they bring their
angel-ministries of cheer. Their love, less centred
upon one, expands to bless the many, who
would not otherwise have known how tender and
how self-sacrificing love can be.
As I write this chapter I think of one of the
simplest, sincerest, and most lovable Christians
I ever knew, who often felt discouraged because
home-duties so circumscribed her opportunities
for wider usefulness. Thrilled by what she read
of the noble services rendered to Christ by
devoted women at home and abroad, she would
sigh and say, " But I am doing nothing at all."
She did not repine, but she felt saddened by the

THE DRUDGERY OF COMMON LIFE 85
thought. And yet, all the time, she did not
know how great a blessing she was, and how her
own beautiful life was brightening other lives
beside her. She was her husband's daily strength,
as well as daily joy. She made her home one
of the happiest and sunniest on earth. She
trained her children to love all purest and noblest
things. She taught them righteousness and
sympathy, and self-sacrifice and truth, till every
one of them rose up to call her blessed. And
she did far more than that. She was a suc-
courer of many outside the home, though she
hardly realised how many sorrowers she cheered;
how many of the poor thanked God for her as
the best earthly friend they had, how lovingly
unselfish her whole life was, and how its shining
light led many to seek her Saviour as their own.
That was her daily ministry, quiet, hid greatly
from the world's eye, but a ministry of blessing
from first to last.
I think, too, of many other likeminded saintly
souls, hardly known outside of their own im
mediate neighbourhood, who bear sickness in
solitude, who are burdened with care from one
year's end to another, whose life is one long
weariness of spirit, with almost nothing of what
the world would call comfort or success ; but
who are bearing sweetly and patiently the trials
of their lot, content if they please the Unseen

86 THE DRUDGERY OF COMMON LIFE
Lord, who has given them only very humble
and small things to please Him in, and are daily,
amid the most depressing circumstances, showing
the beauty, and diffusing the fragrance, of truly
consecrated souls.
I think of these, and of their exceeding mul
titude, for there are far more of them than we
know : I think of how they will be welcomed
by the angels into the sorrowless land, and will
shine out there brighter than the stars ; and
then I think of what the Lord and Master said,
" There are last that shall be first, and there are
first that shall be last."
We need as much the cross we bear
As air we breathe, as light we see ;
It brings us to Thy feet in prayer.
It binds us to our Strength in Thee.

"THY HIDDEN ONES"

As chiselled image unresisting lies
In niche by its own Sculptor's hand designed,
So to my unemployed and silent life
Let me in quiet meekness be resigned.
If works of faith and labours sweet of love
May not be mine, yet patient hope may be
Within my heart like a bright censer's fire
With incense of thanksgiving mounting free.
Thou art our Pattern to the end of time
O Crucified ! and perfect is Thy will ;
The workers follow Thee in doing good,
The helpless think of Calvary, and are still.
Caroline M. Noel.

X
"THY HIDDEN ONES"
THIS is one of the most beautiful expressions
in the whole Bible, and it is found only
in the eight-third Psalm. The same idea is
everywhere, but nowhere else is it so tersely
and beautifully expressed. It suggests safety,
on the one hand, and concealment, on the other ;
and the concealment is often in order to the
safety. The whole history of the Church is an illus
tration of this. Noah was one of God's hidden
saints, when the door of the ark was closed, and
the Lord shut him in. The hundred prophets
whom the good Obadiah concealed from Ahab
in two caves and fed daily there were really
God's hidden ones : and so also were the Scottish
Covenanters who found themselves often saved
from the pursuit of the dragoons on mountain
moors by the sudden crescent OI a thick mist in
the kindly folds of which they were completely
hid. They were kept from the enemy's hand
by being kejjt from the enemy's eye,
?9

90 " THY HIDDEN ONES "
And there are many of these hidden ones in
the world still, hidden from notice in the ob
scurity of poverty or of sickness, shut in with
their own weaknesses and sorrows, shut out
from all the world's work, hardly known to any
but the Lord Himself, and yet finding in that
concealment a safety from many dangers they
could hardly otherwise escape. One might almost
say that the largest number of God's saints on
earth are, in this sense, His hidden ones. There
are very many earnest Christians in the busy
highways of life, and many in life's high positions
of honour too. But these are never obscure.
They are seen of all. Their light shines from
lofty candlesticks, and casts its radiance far and
wide. They force the attention of the world to
their discipleship by the conspicuousness of their
position. But the largest number of Christ's
disciples are not only lower down but very much
lower down in the social scale. "Not many
noble are called, but God hath chosen the poor
of this world, rich in faith " : and yet how
seldom are their riches seen ! However ardent
their devotion to Christ may be, they have few
opportunities of showing it. They sometimes
long for the treasures of wealth so recklessly
squandered by others, that they might use them
in the service of their beloved Lord and Master :
but the world's riches lie, for the most part, in

"THY HIDDEN ONES" gi
the hands of worldly men, and where there is
the spirit that would use them for Christ there
is nothing to use. Thousands of God's children
are thus shrouded in obscurity — His hidden
ones. And yet they are often among the finest of
His saints. They remind us of the sweet flowers
that bloom in shady nooks, which only God
and the angels see ; or of the desert melon that
sends its fragrance across the sand, though not
one human foot in half a century may pass that
way ; or of those plain old-fashioned clocks one
sometimes sees in a humble cottage, the outer
case age-worn and grimed, but standing in the
same dim corner year after year, with their slow,
monotonous, heavy click, yet doing their duty
quietly, faithfully, and well. How many a
bright Christian soul is hidden under a thatched
roof, unknown on earth but well known in
heaven, unpraised by men but crowned by the
loving approbation of God !
What wonderful surprises there will be in the
All-revealing Day, when God Who will bring to
light the hidden things of darkness also brings
to light the humble saints whom the darkness had
long concealed ! Among the many bright hopes
that cluster round the day of Christ's appearing,
there is none brighter than this, that it will be
the Day of " the manifestation of the sons of

92 "THY HIDDEN ONES"
God." ' The redemption of His chosen ones ?
Yes. The quickening of His buried ones ? Yes.
The gathering of His scattered ones ? Yes. The
crowning of His struggling ones ? Yes. The
gladdening of His sorrowful ones ? Yes, all
that, but this as well, the manifestation of His
hidden ones.
We need not complain of obscurity now.
. Shadow_js_often shelter. The flowers that bloom
in the shade would be killed by the frosts of the
open and the glare of a burning sun. The
shadow of obscurity and even the darker shadow
of long suffering may be only sheltering from
unsuspected peril some of the finest and sweetest
flowers in the garden of God ; and when the
need of the shadow for their safety is past, they
will be revealed in the beauty that, under the
shadow, they had gained. Do not murmur at
your obscurity : think rather, with chastened
joy, how God, in tender love, may be sheltering
you there from dangers to your soul that full
sunshine would have brought.
Do you still think your lowly obscurity hard
to bear ? Then look at your great Master,
Christ. Twpnty-eight years He spent in the
secluded life of a humble home in Nazareth,
without any opportunity of being, as He might
have been, the Teacher of listening crowds.
i; 1 Rom. viii. 19.

"THY HIDDEN ONES" 93
Why this long hiding of a Light that might have
been shining over all the land ? Was He not
"learning obedience by the things which He
suffered " ? learning to wait, learning content
ment with obscurity, learning resignation to the
Father's will concerning Him, and learning, too,
to sympathise with those who are compelled
to inaction though their hearts are burning to
do great things for God ? What a rebuke to
our complaints of restriction to narrow spheres,
of the shutting up of our powers in obscure
positions, and what a rebuke, too, to our envious
looks at other men, not more highly gifted than
ourselves but raised to higher positions of influence
in the world, or in the church — what a rebuke
to think of the Lord from heaven, for eight-and-
twenty years (eight-and-twenty out of only
thirty-three) buried, lost to sight, waiting in
willingness to be overlooked, watching for the
eye of God, and for the pointings of His hand,
obeying as simply and as rejoicingly as the waiting
watchful angels obey in heaven !
Out of that circumscribed secluded life in a
humble village home came the perfect obedience
unto death that, on Calvary, redeemed the
world : and our Nazareths, too, may become the
best school for our Jerusalems, if there we learn
to be completely satisfied with the will of God
concerning us, whatever that will may be.

94 "THY HIDDEN ONES"
Christ entered life at a low level, and on that
low level He lived patiently and joyfully from
first to last. If even He chose to live thus near
the bottom of human life, such living must have
in it something divinely good. That way lies
the very gate of heaven. To be merely " hidden
ones " may not of itself be joy ; but to be God's
hidden ones, hidden by Him and hidden for
Him, and hidden with Him — is there any joy
greater than that ?
Sweet lives pass on ; the world may never miss them,
And souls, though bright, may shed no dazzling ray ;
But God will know exactly where to find them
When He makes up His jewels in His Day.
A. P. O'Donoghue.

PERILS IN THE DARK

Principalities and powers
Mustering their unseen array
Wait for thy unguarded hours ;
Watch and pray.
Gird thy heavenly armour on,
Wear it ever, night and day ;
Ambushed Ues the evil one ;
Watch and pray. Charlotte Elliot.
The land of trouble and anguish, out of which come the
young and the old lion, the viper, and the fiery flying serpent.
Isa. xxx. 6.

XI
PERILS IN THE DARK
DARKNESS has its discomforts, but it has
its dangers too. " Thou makest dark
ness, and it is night, wherein all the beasts of
the forest do creep forth." ' In the kingdom of
nature that is true ; in the region of soul-
experience it is equally true. When any deep
darkness of trouble or sorrow falls upon the life,
it falls also upon the heart, and all the latent
evils of the. heart begin to stir — hard thoughts of
God, bitter anger at men who have been the real
or supposed causes of the sorrow and the wrong,
soured petulance of spirit, doubts of everything,
unbelief, despair.
And it is not from within alone that danger
assails. All manner of evil thoughts are sug
gested by the devil too. " Darkness is always
peopled by phantoms," do you say ? " it is all
an affair of shaken nerves " ; nay, it is far more
than that. It is a mysterious but undoubted
1 Ps. civ. 20.
97 7

98 PERILS IN THE DARK
part of New Testament teaching that we are
surrounded by invisible powers of darkness
watching to shake our faith in God, even as their
prince essayed to shake the faith of God's Eternal
Son. " We wrestle not against flesh and blood,
but against principalities, against powers, against
the rulers of the darkness of this world," 1 and
suggestions of evil come to us from without as
well as from within. " Man's extremity is God's
opportunity," yes, but man's extremity is the
devil's opportunity too. He comes with his
subtle temptations when we are too weakened
to fight, just as he waited, ere tempting Christ,
till he found Him alone in a wilderness, faint
with hunger after a fast of forty days. He
attacks us as Amalek attacked Israel, not daring
to assail the strong, but " smiting the hindmost,
even all that were feeble, and faint and weary."
His evil hosts are thus like the wild untameable
beasts of the forest that hardly dare to show
themselves by day, but creep forth at night,
prowling around to find some unguarded door
or window through which to make a fatal spring :
and sometimes they do get in !
John Bunyan knew well how these assaults
of the wicked one are made upon the pilgrim
most of all when he is in the " Valley of Humilia
tion." " It is a dangerous place," said Great-
1 Eph. vi. 12.

PERILS IN THE DARK gg
heart, " for there Christian met Apollyon, a
monster with wings like a dragon, and feet like
a bear, and a mouth like a lion " : and many
a pilgrim before and since could tell of the same
experience falling to him when in the same low
and lonely valley of sorrow.
What can be done to keep these crafty assail
ants at bay ? One thing only — Flash upon them
God's light of Grace and Truth and Peace !
They are creatures of the darkness, and will
not face that light of His. Have you ever
noticed that in all the story of the long wander
ings of Israel we never read of any harm done
to them by the wild beasts that roamed the
desert sands ? How so ? Was it not just be
cause the " pillar of fire by night " that glowed
over all the camp was Israel's sure defence ?
The wild beasts were all around, but did not
dare to touch one of that light-protected host.
Israel was living in the light of God — by night
as well as by day. The Lord was " a wall of
fire " ' all round the camp, as well as a " glory
in its midst," and so they were kept in peace.
Exploring travellers, in our own modern days,
have often told how, after kindling their fires
at nightfall, they have seen the gleaming eyes
of wild beasts just outside the circle of light, and
have watched the stealthy prowling forms that
1 Zech. ii. 5.

ioo PERILS IN THE DARK
did not dare to cross it, and how the lamp
inside the tent was enough to keep any intruder
out. There is your refuge, troubled and tor
mented heart, against the " terror by night " :
live in the light of God. His love-light is always
burning over you — there is no doubt of that :
let your own faith-light be also burning clear
within, and you need fear nothing. Believe in
the Father's unchanging grace, and treat these
dark thoughts that trouble you as being only
suggestions of the evil one ; and they will never
shake the perfect peace of the heart that is
" stayed on Him."
There is a beautifully tender passage in Ezekiel
where God speaks of His loving care for the
sheep that are " scattered in the cloudy and
dark day." He says : " I will make with them
a covenant of peace, and will cause the evil
beasts to cease out of the land : and they shall
dwell safely in the wilderness and sleep in the
woods." l Read these words literally, and they
have no meaning for the troubled to-day ; but
read them spiritually, and they are full of divinest
consolation. Life sometimes wears the aspect
of a dreary wilderness, shelterless, comfortless,
bare. Sometimes, again, it is rather like a thick
entangling forest, full of perplexities and diffi
culties, impenetrably dark, shadowed in gloom,
1 Ezek. xxxiv. 25.

PERILS IN THE DARK 101
with unseen dangers lurking on every side and
filling the heart with strange misgivings and
fears. For both of these conditions the Lord makes
perfect provision. As the Lord of peace He
makes with all trustful hearts a " covenant of
peace." He does not promise to make the
wilderness a home for us, for we are only pilgrims
through it to the home beyond it ; and so He
does not speak of our dwelling comfortably in
the wilderness, but He does speak of our dwelling
" safely " there : and yet what a great thing
that is — to know and feel that at every step of
the pilgrim way, in the darkness as well as in
the light, we are absolutely safe, so safe that we
can " sleep in the woods," can lie down with
quiet hearts, even though, from utter exhaustion,
we cannot take another step, and in the utter
darkness have not one gleam of light.
King Solomon took the greatest pains to
ensure himself untroubled rest : "As for his bed
three-score valiant men were about it, every man
with his sword upon his thigh, because of fear
in the night " ; l yet, after all, he was not one
whit more secure than his father David was
beneath the open sky, where, though hunted by
a relentless foe, his God was watching over him,
and he could sing, " I will both lay me down
1 Song iii. 7, 8.

102 PERILS IN THE DARK
in peace and sleep, for Thou, Lord, only makest
me to dwell in safety." Do we know anything
of what this means ? what it is to lie like a
little child in the arms of encircling love, and
fear nothing ?
To an infant resting in its mother's arms, it
makes no difference where it is. The wilderness
and the forest are the same to it as its most
sheltered home. In the darkest night of storm
it can sleep as tranquilly as in the calmest day.
Its surroundings are nothing to it. All it wants
is to feel the enfolding arm, and feeling that, it
is utterly content. Does not the Lord make
that an emblem of the peace that may be ours,
when He says, " The Eternal God is thy refuge,
and underneath thee are the everlasting arms " ?
I grasp Thy strength, make it my own,
My heart with peace is blest ;
I lose my hold, and then comes down
Darkness and cold unrest.
Let me no more my comfort draw
From my frail hold of Thee ;
In this alone rejoice with awe.
Thy mighty grasp of me. J. C Shairp.

TRANSFIGURED FACES

O Love Divine, that stooped to share
Our deepest pang, our bitterest tear,
On Thee we cast each earth-born care,
We smile at pain while Thou art near.
Though long the weary way we tread.
And sorrow crown each lingering year,
No path we shun, no darkness dread,
Our heart still whispering " Thou art near."
O. W. Holmes.

XII
TRANSFIGURED FACES
MY faith looks up to Thee," says one of
our choicest Christian hymns, and
that is the safest heart-attitude always. As our
chief temptations come from looking around, and
our chief dangers from looking down, so our
chief miseries come from looking too far in front.
We need to learn the blessed art of constantly
looking up. That is the one panacea for all
ills, the one prescription for safety and for peace.
In one of the Psalms, the thirty-fourth, we
overhear the thankful reminiscences of a great
sufferer who had learned this secret well : " I
sought the Lord, and He heard me, and delivered
me from all my fears. They looked unto Him
and were lightened, and their faces were not
ashamed." Who was it that looked ? Was it
not his " fears " ? They had been like a great
phantom host crowding round him with down
cast faces, and intensifying his gloom ; but he
i°5

106 TRANSFIGURED FACES
bade them look up to the God of his salvation,
and instantly a transfiguring light from above
came over them, and made their faces shine.
Does not many a suffering heart know well
how gloom deepens as fears and forebodings
press around it, shutting it in upon itself ?
What are we to do with that host of phantom
fears ? There is only one thing that will be
of any use — bid them look up ! and as the
transfiguring light of heaven falls upon them,
you will not recognise them again.
No other way of meeting any kind of trouble
will succeed like this. To fight against trouble
is vain. Mere stoical resignation to it as to an
inevitable fate brings no calm into the heart.
The well-meant sympathy of friends who have
had little experience of trouble seldom heals
the sore. Their platitudes of commiseration —
" You do not suffer so much as hundreds at your
side," " The load will grow lighter as you get
accustomed to the weight," "The longest lane
has a turning, and the darkest night a dawn,"
and other sayings of a like kind — how well we
know them ! and how profitless they are !
They will not do. There is only one thing that
will (and God Himself must be the Teacher of
it), to look up and trust. Get the inward attitude
to the trouble changed from fear to faith,
and the trouble, though it may not at once

TRANSFIGURED FACES 107
cease to exist, will from that moment cease to
torment. When there is trouble without and rebellion
within, we are in the position of a ship-captain
who has to meet a hurricane with a mutinous
crew. His worst dangers are in his own ship.
And yet how much of this mutinous spirit there
is in us all ! It is great folly ; but it is more
than that, it is great sin : for it means great
forgetfulness of the Father's promises, great
distrust of the Father's guidance, and great
unbelief of the reality of the Father's love.
How often have our faithless fears been falsified
when we only got a little farther on ! That
sad-hearted Hebrew mother who gave her young
son the doleful name of " Jabez " (the sorrowful)
lived to see him grow up the best of all her sons,
" more honourable than his brethren," * and
to recognise in him the choicest gift she had
got from the hands of God. The troubles of
life stand round us, and we call them " fears " ;
let us look up and wait, and we will call them
" blessings " soon. Sad hearts are often pecu
liarly ingenious in discovering the gloomiest
point of view from which to look upon their
trials, and they call God's providence by the
hardest names ; and yet how many find that
what they called " Jabez " at first, turned out
1 1 Chron. iv. 10.

108 TRANSFIGURED FACES
ere long to be fuller of mercy than brighter-
looking things had ever been !
Only a very simple and confiding faith can
believe that this may be so, while the trial is still
intense. But childlike hearts that live very
close to God have always found it true. There
is something like a series of telegraphic signals
by which the Spirit of God in the soul com
municates with God's providences as they come,
recognises them as friends and welcomes them ;
while an unbelieving heart only dreads them,
puts itself into an attitude of defence against
them, and makes them enemies by treating them
as such. God gives a calm heart wherever there
is a watchful, upward-looking eye.
Any life trouble will cease to worry the moment
we look up, recognise the Guiding Hand, and
feel that He is teaching us to trust Him utterly,
be the outlook perplexing as it may. When two
friends are walking arm-in-arm, and one of
them wishes to take a path which the other
refuses to take, either they must pull in opposite
directions or they must separate and walk apart.
But God will not let His children separate them
selves from Him ; and so, if they struggle against
His leading, they have to be dragged. Sub
mitting to be led, the trouble is at an end.
Very beautifully did a great sufferer once
express the thought that all God's afflicting

TRANSFIGURED FACES 109
strokes are only His loving attempts to get very
close to us, and to keep us very near to Him,
when, speaking of her loss in quick succession
of father, mother, husband, and child, she said
with meek submission and yet with joy, " I see
that God wants all my heart, and He shall have
it." That is what He seeks from all of us, and
if His uninterrupted goodness does not effect
it, His chastenings and afflictions often do.
We fear these things at first, but the upward
look changes fear into peace.
This Psalm tells us that the upward look must
be an upward look of trust, but also an upward
look of prayer ; and it is chiefly in our deep
sorrows that we learn the value of prayer, as
bringing us into that calm Presence where
nothing but peace reigns. Many a sufferer has
learnt this from his own experience. Pressed
down by difficulties, he first tried many means
of getting free, but tried in vain ; till at last he
took his burdens and laid them all on the loving
heart of his Father in heaven, beginning perhaps
with a prayer that the burden might be removed,
but soon ceasing to ask anything except that his
Father's loving purpose might be fulfilled ; and
then he found a strange new peace reigning in
his soul : and when he thought of his first pe
tition for release, he found that he had almost
forgotten what it was ! He had been so lifted

no TRANSFIGURED FACES
up into perfect oneness of feeling with his God,
that he ceased to care whether release came or
not — for he had got something better far than
release could be.
What a resource prayer is for burdened hearts !
and it is always an accessible resource. We may
be like the disciples in the dark storm on the
lake, but we, too, shall find that a cry in the
darkness brings the Master instantly to our aid.
It may be too dark to see, too dark to steer,
too dark to toil any longer at the oar ; but it is
never too dark to pray. Praying in the dark may
be, like writing in the dark, a little confused ;
but He to whom all darkness is as the light
will read the meaning easily ; and by-and-by
we will make the glad discovery that it is never
too dark to sing. We will worship the great
Calmer of the waves, not only while yet in the
boat, but with even greater joy when we are
upon the farther shore, and all waves are still,
for " there is no more sea."
Come to my help, O Master ! — once in sorrow
My more than brother — King of Glory now ;
Even in my tears a gleam of hope I borrow
From the deep scars around Thy radiant brow,
Come to my help, as once God's angels hastened
To cheer Thee in Thy midnight agony ;
O Lord of angels I once by suit 'ring chastened.
Forget me not in mine infirmity.

TRANSFIGURED FACES n
Walk Thou the wave with me, the tempest stilling ;
Let me but feel the clasping of Thy strength —
Thy heavenly strength — through all my pulses thrilling,
I shall not fear to reach the shore at length.
Dr. Bethune.

SHATTERED HOPES

She waited long on God,
And He forsook not ; through the gloomy vale
She leant upon His staff until His rod
Brake forth in blossoms pale.
Then did her spirit bless
The gracious token ; then she saw the rife
Salt-crusted standing pools of bitterness
Spring up as wells of life. Dora Greenwell.
I saw a cup sent down and come to her
Brimful of loathing and of bitterness ;
She drank with livid lips that seemed to stir
The depth, not make it less :
But as she drank I spied a Hand distil
New wine and virgin honey ; making it
First bitter-sweet, then sweet indeed, until
She tasted only sweet. Christina Rossetti.

XIII
SHATTERED HOPES
NOTHING is so hard to bear as disappointed
hope. Bitterness in the fountain to which
we ran eagerly for relief crushes us more terribly
than the absence of any fountain would have
done. To find the alluring vision of a gleaming
lake to be only a mirage, the reflection of a burn
ing sky upon burning sand, or to find that what
is really water is water so bitter that it is like
poison in the mouth — there is no experience
more depressing than that. We can endure
almost anything if we have long been looking
it steadily in the face ; but disappointment I
that is a different thing altogether, and crushes
the very life out of us the moment it is met.
A very suggestive picture of this is given us
in the story of Israel's experience at Marah's
bitter pool.1 After the marvellous deliverance,
and jubilant songs on the shore of the Red Sea,
they had set out on pilgrimage with highest
1 Exod. xv. 23.
"5

n6 SHATTERED HOPES
hopes, expecting that every onward step would
only bring them into fuller peace. And yet three
days had not passed when they found themselves
almost dying of thirst in a sun-scorched desert
where no smallest brook crossed their path. At
last, a long line of distant palms showed that
water was near ; but what an agony of dis
appointment to find only a bitter, poisonous
pool of which none could drink !
Do we wonder at the wild murmurings that
arose over all the camp ? Scarce one of our
selves but would have murmured too I and God
seemed to feel that they could hardly help it,
for He did not meet that murmuring with a
single word of rebuke. Bearing tenderly with
them, just as one would bear with the moaning
fretfulness of a sick child, He showed Moses a
tree which, being cast into the pool, took all its
bitterness away ; and the very next day He
led them on to a better resting-place, Elim's
abundant wells of water pure and sweet.
It is easy for those who have never been severely
tried to accuse disappointed sufferers of want of
faith. We like to get up a little self-complacency
by blaming them, not thinking that, in similar
circumstances, we ourselves would fail as quickly
as they. You say to such a sufferer, '' It is very
sinful to let yourself be so fretful, and impatient,
and upset." That may be true ; but have you

SHATTERED HOPES 117
yourself ever tried to go through your daily
tasks with an aching head and a bursting heart ?
Have you always found it easy amid a thousand
worries to keep a temper placid and serene ?
When worn out with nights of sleeplessness and
pain, have you always been able to come down
in the morning with a smile for every one upon
a sunny face ? When some one loved as your
own life was suddenly threatened with death by
fell disease, and an utter crushing of all your
hopes of earthly happiness seemed close at hand,
were you able to take calmly that shattering of
your hopes ? were you able to say submissively,
" Thy Will be done " ? Oh, let us judge our
brethren tenderly, with the gentle and sweet
compassion of the Lord Himself.
There are many sad disenchantments in life
awaiting all of us, if they have not already
come. No one will go far on the pilgrim way
without having to mutter " Marah " over some
anticipated joy, without finding bitter water
where he expected sweet. Visions of wealth,
fame, honour, home comforts, love — have they
always been fulfilled ? Have they all been
Elims when we reached them ? They promised
to slake the soul's thirst for happiness ; have
not many of them been only Marahs that mocked
that thirst?
But when the hour of disappointment comes,

% ¦
118 * SHATTERED HOPES
then is the very hour for God to sweeten the
bitterness by showing us a Tree of life which
takes the poison away, and turns despondency
into joy. The tree He showed to Moses was not
one created then and there by miracle. It was
already growing at the side of the pool ; and the
Lord does not need to create some new consola
tions for our suffering hearts, a new Bible, or a
new mercy-seat, or a new Christ, or a new atone
ment, or new promises, or new grace. They
are all there, close beside us, waiting for our
time of need. He has simply to open our eyes
to see them, and give us power to use them, and
they will turn any sorrow into thanksgiving and
praise. Hagar did not see the well in the desert
of Beersheba till " the Lord opened her eyes "
that were blinded by tears, but the well had been
there, and close beside her all the time. Our
help is always far nearer than we think ; alas !
that we have not always either the opened eye
or the trustful, taking hand !
But God does more than merely heal the
bitter waters. He leads His pilgrims beyond
them to other wells that are always sweet.
When Marah is behind us Elim is in front. The
nearness of Elim to Marah is suggestive : only
six miles separated the one from the other. Do
not the sweetnesses and the bitternesses of Hfe
lie very near each other after all ? Marahs are

SHATTERED HOPES ^ ^19
not the only experiences of the pilgrimage,
though many a weary sufferer would have us
believe that they are. Life has many Elims
too ; and it is often only a short day's journey
from the misery to the joy. Jacob found this
true. He was one of the saddest-hearted of
men, alone with his fears ; but as he " went on
his way, the angels of God met him." l David
found it true : "O my God, my soul is cast
down within me, my tears have been my meat
day and night " — there he is at Marah, a weary
desponding man — but very soon he comes to
Elim : " Why art thou cast down, O my soul,
and why art thou disquieted within me ? Hope
thou in God, for I shall yet praise Him for the
health of His countenance." • Hezekiah found
it true : " Mine eyes fail with looking upward.
O Lord, I am oppressed, undertake for me."
Life is all Marah to him there. But as he goes
on a little way, he can say, " Behold, for peace
I had great bitterness, but Thou hast in love
to my soul cast all my sins behind Thy back j
O Lord, by these (sorrowful) things men live,
and in all these things is the life of my spirit." •
He has reached Elim now. Paul too had his
Marah, when his thrice-repeated prayer for a
removal of the " thorn " brought no alleviation
of his pain ; but he soon came to an Elim where
1 Gen. xxxii. 1. 2 Ps. xiii. 3 Isa. xxxviii.

120 SHATTERED HOPES
he could say, " Most gladly will I glory in my
infirmities, for when I am weak then am I
strong." ' And is it not written for all the
pilgrims of God, " When the poor and needy
seek water and there is none, and their tongue
faileth them for thirst " — sitting at a Marah
bitter as death — " I the Lord will open fountains
in the valleys, and make the dry land springs
of water " ? ! So they shall have their Elims
too. We thank Thee, Lord, for weary days
When desert springs were dry ;
For then we proved what depth of need
Thy Love could satisfy.
We knew Thee as we could not know
Through heaven's golden years ;
We there shall see Thy glorious face,
But Mary saw Thy tears.
The touch that heals the broken heart
Is never felt above ;
The angels know Thy blessedness.
But way-worn saints Thy love.

P. B.

* 2 Cor. xii. a Isa. xii. 18.

A SONG IN THE NIGHT

Though crooked seem the paths, yet are they straight
By which Thou draw'st Thy children up to Thee ;
And passing wonders by the way they see,
And learn at last to own Thee wise and great.
Let not my proud heart dictate, Lord, to Thee,
But tame the wayward will that seeks its own,
And wake the love that clings to Thee alone,
And takes Thy chastenings in humility. Lyra Germanica.

XIV
A SONG IN THE NIGHT
HERE is another choice saying from the Book
of Psalms,1 " I will bless the Lord at all
times ; His praise shall continually be in my
mouth." Who said that ? Surely he must have
been one remarkably exempt from the troubles
of life ? Not so. He was one whose life was
fuller of strange vicissitudes, and more loaded
with trials than that of almost any other at his
side. Great mercies he had to speak of, great
deliverances, great honours, great joys; but he
could also tell of great sorrows, great calamities,
great reverses of fortune, great punishments for
his sins. And yet, with all these full in view,
he could say, " I will bless the Lord at all times,"
in my darkest as well as in my brightest hours,
in my weary wanderings as well as in my peaceful
home, in my sorest chastenings as well as in my
purest joys ; and it was not simply " I will
1 Ps. xxxiv. i.
123

124 A SONG IN THE NIGHT
acknowledge the Lord at all times," nor " I will
submit to the Lord at all times." It was far
more : " I will bless the Lord at all times." In
the very things that seemed fitted only to depress,
he found materials for a song !
Reading these wonderful Psalms — or rather
singing them, for they were meant to be songs
for the lip as well as for the heart — we often
feel borne up on eagles' wings into the calm
serenity of heaven, and yet we shrink from
appropriating them, afraid that we have no
right to such exalted joys. But this God is our
God as well as David's God ; and, looking up
as David looked, believing what David believed,
trusting where David trusted, we can claim
notwithstanding all our sinfulness what David
claimed notwithstanding his.
Can I praise God for the afflictions of my
life ? That is a testing question, and goes very
deep. It is not, Can I trust Him in my trials ?
nor, Can I justify Him for sending them ? It
is not even, Can I look beyond them to the
blessed rest of heaven ? It is something far
more than these, Can I praise Him for them
even here and now ? Great grace is needed
for that, and only Spirit-taught souls can
do it.
Why are we not always able to do it, even
though we are living by faith ? Perhaps the

A SONG IN THE NIGHT 125
chief reason is that we are lacking in the child
like simplicity of faith which earlier believers
had. We have better knowledge than they, we
have larger promises than they, we have a
clearer revelation of God's heart of love than
they, and yet men of faith in the old days seem
to have lived nearer to God than most of us
can do. Perhaps it is because childhood is
always more confiding than age, or because God
was making up to them for the dimness of their
light by drawing them closer to it that they
might see more distinctly ; but men like Abraham
and Moses and David and Isaiah do seem to have
been on exceedingly intimate terms with God.
Think of Abraham's prayer for Sodom : was
there ever such boldness ? Think of Moses'
communings with God : was communion ever
more close ? Think of Jehoshaphat's faith :
was faith ever more sublime ? Think of David's
joyous trust : was joy ever loftier or more in
tense ? There are bursts of triumph in his
Psalms which our most fervent Christian hymns
cannot excel.
Hazlitt's half-satirical saying, " In Jacob's
days there was only a ladder between earth and
heaven ; but now the heavens have gone farther
off, and become astronomical," expresses the'
feeling that the childlike character of faith has
been greatly lost since the childhood of the

126 A SONG IN THE NIGHT
world passed away. We are distracted now by
a thousand things unknown before : and clouds
of immature science and shallow philosophy
come between us and God. We must certainly
get away from the " childish things " of the past,
but we need far more of the " childlike " ; and
Christ's great saying about the things that are
revealed only to " babes " is a hint of how we
can alone get back to the old sweetness of inter
course with a Father in heaven. It is this
child-spirit which alone can show us reasons
why we should " in everything give thanks."
It will be easy for us to bless God for afflictions
when we feel that God is making affliction a
blessing to us ; and this is what He often does.
When it both reveals and purges out many
hidden evils of the heart, humbles our pride and
self-sufficiency, breaks the power of worldliness,
and makes the centre of our affections not earthly
but spiritual riches — when it leads to a more
absolute faith, God seeming to say, " Now I am
testing you to see whether you can trust me to
the uttermost, have you faith enough to do it ? "
— when it refines and beautifies the whole char
acter, so that there is a mellowing and sweetening
of the life in gentler patience, and kindlier
sympathy, and more perfect love — and when
there is gained thereby an altogether new sense
of the sustaining power of Grace — these are

A SONG IN THE NIGHT 127
blessings of the very highest kind, and more than
worth the pain through which they come : a9
one in very deep and prolonged affliction was able
to write, " I am getting more in love with suffering
every day, not for its own sake, for certainly
there is nothing very lovable in it, but I never
knew before how good God can be, how near to
me He could come, and how sweet His comforts
would prove."
One of the fine services which sanctified
affliction renders is that it forces us out of the
region of dim uncertainties and mere talk into
the region of great realities. There are moments
in life when the vision becomes more than
ordinarily clear, and God seems the nearest as
well as the dearest of all realities and it is often
in deep sorrows that such ravishing moments
come. If we want to find the men and women
who live nearest to the gates of pearl, and have
the most entrancing views of what God has
prepared for those that love Him, we must seek
them among the suffering, in homes of privation
and sorrow, rather than in the palaces of
kings. Do we always realise that sickness is a gift
from God, as much as health ? We commonly
speak as if health alone were the gift, and sick
ness a withdrawal of the gift ; but sickness is
really as much a gift as health, and a love-gift

128 A SONG IN THE NIGHT
too, God's purpose for one beloved child may
be that he shall serve Him much by active
labour, and so He gives to that one the precious
gift of health ; but His purpose for another
equally beloved child may be that he shall be
a notable witness to the power of His purifying
and refining grace,, and so He sends to him the
precious gift of a long and sore affliction ; and
the Lord, the Giver of both, may be as much
glorified by the sanctified patience of the one
as by the sanctified labours of the other. A
sick-bed is often doing as much for Christ as many
a pulpit. Instead of saying in any deep trouble, " How
sorely I am tried ! " it would be better to say,
" How many blessings are left me still ! " We
are always reckoning up our sorrows, why should
we not count up our mercies too ? When God
comes into the home, and takes a loved child
away, instead of complaining of the loss of the
one, might we not rather thank Him that He
has left the rest ? If He removes our earthly
prosperity, but leaves untouched the dearer
treasures of sweet faces round the hearth,
would it not be more befitting to praise Him
for the treasures spared than to complain of
the riches lost ? O my soul, " forget not all
His benefits," and thou, too, wilt learn to " bless
the Lord at all times " ; thou wilt exchange

A SONG IN THE NIGHT 129
the " spirit of heaviness " for " garments of
praise," Ah ! vain conceit that glory with its light
Could do the work of Sorrow with its shade ;
That Faith's high triumphs could be won by sight,
Or man, without the cross, be God-like made.
J. B. Monsell.

THE LONG LAST MILE

The way is long, my Father, and my soul
Longs for the rest and quiet of the goal :
While yet I journey through this weary land
Keep me from fainting, Father, take my hand,
And, safe and blest, lead up to rest
Thy child.
The way is long, my child, but it shall be
Not one step longer than is best for thee ;
And thou shalt know when thou at last dost stand
Safe at the goal, how I did take thy hand,
And, safe and blest, with Me shall rest.
My child. The Changed Cross.

XV
THE LONG LAST MILE
IN one of our hymns, singing the glory of the
risen Christ, there is a minor key which
exactly expresses the feelings of many a sufferer.
After saying, Thou art gone up on high
To mansions in the skies ;
And round Thy Throne unceasingly
The songs of praise arise,
it goes on :
But we are lingering here,
With sin and care oppress'd :
Lord, send Thy promised Comforter,
And lead us to Thy rest.
That is just the feeling and the prayer of
thousands of God's stricken ones. They are
lying useless, they say, on beds of pain, while the
busy world and a busy church are full of active
life ; cut off from all service, only " lingering
here " : sad-hearted lingerers too, " with sin
133

134 THE LONG LAST MILE
and care oppressed " ; and their one intense
desire is to be as quickly as possible at home.
This may be a quite legitimate feeling, but it
may also be a morbid one ; for there are two
heart-attitudes towards heaven which are evil :
on the one hand, an extreme reluctance to be
done with earthly joys, and a great unreadiness
of spirit for such a place as heaven ; on the other,
an extreme eagerness to escape the sadnesses of
life, with an undertone of rebellion against the
long and seemingly needless continuance of the
discipline of pain.
Do we not know men who talk eloquently
about the blessedness of heaven, and yet, if
suddenly called to enter it, would be greatly
disappointed that it had come so soon ? A
speedy entrance into what they believe to be the
" better country " is not a very attractive pros
pect. They are really unwilling to die. And,
strange to say, this unwillingness to part with
the present world does not always grow less
with advancing years. A clinging to life often
grows stronger as life is nearing its close. Neither
does the fact that life has been very full of
sorrows always make us willing to give it up.
Proofs of this are seen in many ways. Some,
from this feeling, do not like their real age to be
known. Others, from the same feeling, affect
a foolish youthfulness of manner and of dress.

THE LONG LAST MILE 135
Others again, for the same reason, dislike any
allusion to their increasing infirmities, are mor
bidly afraid to make their wills, are rendered
uncomfortable by seeing dangerous illness, still
more by witnessing actual death, and never
speak of death at all. They profess to believe
that heaven will be infinitely better than earth
can be, and yet they do not really believe it,
else they would not be so alarmed at what brings
it near.
The other extreme, however, does not mend
matters much. To disparage the present life
as being only a scene of vexation and sorrow,
to look at nothing in it except its trials, to be
eager for heaven simply because it will bring
a release from burden-bearing and pain — that
is not a Christian attitude, whatever else it may
be. The desire to depart, if a spiritual one,
cannot be too strong ; but mere weariness of
life has nothing spiritual in it at all. Christ, our
great Pattern, never spoke of His trials and
sufferings in the tone of simple weariness. If
He was eager to die, it was not to obtain release
thereby, but only to have the joy of seeing His
great redeeming work a finished thing for the
saving of men and the glory of the Father Who
had sent Him to do it.
The thoughts and feelings of heavenly-minded
men will always be rising heavenwards ; but

136 THE LONG LAST MILE
mere weariness of life's trials leads easily to faith
lessness in life's responsibilities, and to doubts
of the love that can let the trials last so long.
" Ye have need of patience, that after ye have
done the will of God, ye may receive the pro
mise " ; and the patience needed is patience to
live. " If life be long," said Richard Baxter,
" I will be glad, that I may long obey," though
he added, " If life be short, can I be sad to soar
to endless day ? " That is the noblest Christian
attitude. To take lengthened suffering as an
extended opportunity of glorifying God by calm
acceptance of His will is infinitely better than
to long faint-heartedly for release.
There are always sufficient reasons, both on
His side and on our own, for any postponement
of the home-call. Some of His best-loved chil
dren have so hard a lot, and such a warfare too
with their imperfectly-sanctified natures, that it
seems as if the greatest blessing He could give
them would be just immediate release from all
the suffering and all the sin ; and often the
words are uttered in paroxysms of unbearable
pain — have we not often heard them ? — " Oh,
come, Lord Jesus, come quickly ! " But what
if the last fine touches have yet to be put to
God's great work of reproducing the Christ-
likeness in the soul ? What if He Himself will
be further served by the testimony of dying

THE LONG LAST MILE 137
lips ? What if He knows that there is still one
other heart to be touched, one other soul to be
won for Him by the sufferer, ere the hands drop
and the lips are sealed ? What if He is thinking,
too, of the sorrowers who will be left behind, and
of how the thought that Death has come to their
dear one as an unspeakable relief from agonising
pain will make them more reconciled to the
parting when it comes ?
Those who have had much to do with hearing
the religious experience of seekers after God
have found that a very large number of those
led to decision for Christ were so led through
seeing the triumph of some dear friend in the
last hours of sickness ; and this may have been
one reason why that dear friend's release was
so long delayed. The sisters of Bethany could
not understand why their loving Master was so
long in coming to their relief ; but He said it
was " for the glory of God, that the Son of God
might be glorified thereby " ; and the event
proved that it was so, for " many of the Jews who
came to Mary and saw the things that Jesus
did, believed on Him." If He delays to answer
the prayers and longings of weary sufferers now,
He will never linger one moment too long. He
knows the exact amount of pain the heart can
bear, and He will never let the pain become
so intense that faith will fail. He knows, too,

138 THE LONG LAST MILE
what good is to come out of the lengthening of
the pain, and for the sake of that He lets the
weary heart live on.
Instead therefore of calling the long time of
weariness a " lingering here," we might better
call it, as Job did, " a patient waiting all the
days of our appointed time till our change come."
If patience is to " have its perfect work that we
may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing,"
we must let God take His own time as well as
His own way for bringing the great release.
Teach me to live ! 'tis easier far to die,
Gently and silently to pass away ;
On earth's long night to close the heavy eye,
And waken in the realm of glorious day.
Teach me that harder lesson, how to live
And serve Thee in the darkest paths of life ;
Arm me to conflict, strength and patience give.
And make me more than conqueror in the strife.
Voices of Comfort.

ON THE RIVER'S BRINK

We pace the deck together,
Faith and I ;
In stress of midnight weather,
Faith and I ;
And catch at times a vision
Of the bright Eastern sky
Where waiteth God to tell us
That we shall never die.
A mystic shape did move
Behind, and drew me backward by the hair,
And a Voice said in mastery while I strove,
" Guess now who holds thee ! " — " Death," I said ; but
there
The silver answer rang, " Not Death, but Love."

XVI
ON THE RIVER'S BRINK
ONE of the sweet consolations of the weary
pilgrim as he nears the end of the way
is that then he often gets his clearest visions of
the Celestial City beyond. Bunyan calls this
stage " the land of Beulah, where the air is very
sweet and pleasant and the sun shineth night
and day, for this is beyond the valley of the
shadow of death, and also out of the reach of
Giant Despair ; neither could they so much as
see Doubting Castle from this place. Here, too,
they met with some of the inhabitants of the
land they were going to, for here the shining
ones often walked, because it is on the very
borders of heaven."
It is sometimes so. Many of God's pilgrims
have these hours of vision in the closing stage
of the journey, just as Moses got a sublime
vision of Canaan from Pisgah's top. There are
Pisgahs everywhere to the heart of faith. A
mountain-solitude, the chamber of prayer, the
141

142 ON THE RIVER'S BRINK
sacramental feast, have often seemed to open
all heaven to the wondering eye. But the chief
mount of vision is just on this side of the river
of death. The seers who see most of the glory
are those who are appointed to die. There is a
light sometimes upon a dying face that reflects
a hidden sun, and murmurs are heard on dying
lips that seem snatches of the songs of heaven.
From meanest beds, in poorest garrets, God's
dying saints have sometimes had visions of the
coming glory far transcending anything of which
poet ever dreamed.
But it is not always so ; indeed it is rarely
so. Such glowing transports in the dying hour
are quite exceptional. They cannot be calcu
lated upon ; and the want of them need throw
no doubt upon the reality of Christian faith.
Very few Christians die in ecstasy. Every true
Christian is a conqueror over death and abso
lutely safe ; but not every one has a song of
victory on the dying lips. Martyrs have kissed
the flames that were consuming them, and sung
themselves into a waiting heaven ; and some
believing souls have had death-beds lighted up
with entrancing joys. But only a few Elijahs
here and there go home in a chariot of fire.
The largest part of God's redeemed host are
carried out of sight in a chariot of cloud, con
scious only of a deep inward calm and a blessed

ON THE RIVER'S BRINK 143
hope. There is no rapture, only a sweet expect
ancy. In weakness of body and weariness of
mind hardly a word is uttered, and all around
the bed are falling tears.
Some, indeed, have even less than this. They
die amid the shadows, trembling lest they should
be castaways. Still, God's redeemed and loved
are just as safe in the chariot of cloud as in the
chariot of fire. The victory is real, though the
song of victory is reserved for the other side,
to burst forth in the first moment of entry
within the veil. " I have no raptures," said a
dying saint, " but I have perfect peace." That
is enough. The song will come when the harp
of heaven is in the hand, and the perfect voice
can sing it as no voice can sing it here.
What gives this perfect peace ? The cross
and victory of a Redeeming Lord who gives to
all believing souls the comfort of His own assur
ance, " Because I live, ye shall live also." It
was the custom, of old, for the king's cup-bearer
to taste the wine before putting the cup to the
royal lips. If there was poison in it, the death
of the cup-bearer would reveal that fact : the
continued life of the wine-taster would be an
assurance that the king might safely drink.
So Christ " by the grace of God, tasted death."
He drank of the cup, and showed that there was
no poison in it for Him, for " behold, He is alive

144 ON THE RIVER'S BRINK
for evermore " ; and therefore, Christian, there
is no poison in it for you. He makes you a
sharer in His own perfect life. Through the
very lowest of your experiences Jesus went, that
into the very highest of His experiences you
might go.
There are many glorious truths that no Christian
would part with for all the world ; and, next to
the grand truth that the atoning death of Jesus
is enough to cover all our sins, is the other truth
that His heavenly Life is enough to cover all
our fears ; for He who by dying pledged Himself
to " bring the many sons to glory " has been
exalted to the Throne to make that promise
good. Has He not Himself gathered up all the
comfort of these two facts into one golden sen
tence, " My sheep shall never perish, I give unto
them Eternal life, and none shall pluck them out
of my hands " ? 1 and was not Paul right, there
fore, when he said, " I am persuaded that neither
death nor life, nor things present nor things to
come . . . shall be able to separate us from the
love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord " ? *
That magnificent chapter, the eighth of the
Romans, begins with " no condemnation," and
ends with " no separation." Does not this give
" perfect peace " ? On the Rock of Ages we
have perfect peace ; in the fiery furnace we may
1 John x. 28. 2 Rom. viii. 38.

ON THE RIVER'S BRINK 145
have perfect peace ; in the shipwreck of earthly
hope we can have perfect peace ; in the swellings
of Jordan too we ought to have the same perfect
peace, peace as perfect as in the heavenly home
itself. Richard Baxter spoke of the coming of his
death-day as the coming of his " third birthday,"
and looked forward to it with the same joy as
a child looks forward to a birthday feast : and
good Rowland Hill used often to be heard singing
softly to himself, And when I'm to die,
To Jesus I'll fly,
Because he has loved me — I cannot tell why— ¦
But this I do find,
We two are so joined.
He'll not be in glory and leave me behind.
That must be so, if the words of our Redeeming
Lord are true, " Where I am there also shall my
servant be."
If the thought of death is unwelcome, it is
only because we are not on friendly terms with
death ; and that again is due only to our not
being on friendly terms with God. But with the
sweet sense of His redeeming love and all that
that love implies, we can look upon death as a
kindly friend. " I would not paint death as a
skeleton with a mower's scythe," said a child
on looking at a picture representing it so, "I
10

146 ON THE RIVER'S BRINK
would rather paint him as an angel with a golden
key." It is only unforgiven guilt lying heavy
on the conscience that can embitter death. The
peace of God and the good hope through grace
can make it even sweeter than being born. The
felon trembles before the Judge, but the Judge's
little child will not. He will run into his father's
arms, and lift his face to be kissed, and smile
into his father's eyes. Death will never be a
terror to one who " knows the Father," and
whose stedfast heart is clinging to the atoning
cross of His Beloved Son. It will be only the
last of the ministering angels sent forth to gather
in the heirs of salvation. Well will it be for all
of us if our only shrinking from death arises from
the sorrow it will bring to others dear to us,
and if for ourselves we know that to cross the
river will be to enter into the celestial city on
the other side.
O Joy ! one step ashore, and that shore heaven !
To clasp a Hand outstretched, and that Hand His
Who waits my coming, all earth's fetters riven.
To share the glory of His saints in bliss !
To pass, by one short breath, from storm and stress.
To breathe new air in one unbroken calm !
To sleep, and wake in undreamt blessedness,
With conqueror's crown, white robe, and victor's palm !

BESIDE THE GRAVE

Dear Saviour of a dying world
Where grief and change must be,
In the new grave where Thou wast laid
My heart lies down with Thee.
Oh ! not in cold despair of joy
Or weariness of pain ;
But in a hope that shall not die,
To rise and live again.
For this corruptible must rise
From all corruption free ;
And this frail mortal must put on
Thine Immortality.
A. L. Waring.

XVII
BESIDE THE GRAVE
THERE are few more bitter moments in life
than those in which our tears fall as we
look for the last time on the white face of our
beloved dead ; and God does not grudge us
these tears. They are nature's relief, but they
may be heaven's preparations too, sanctifying as
well as soothing to the heart ; " sacred are
sorrow's tears, for Jesus wept."
In the touching story of the weeping sisters
at Bethany we see death striking a home that
seemed the unlikeliest on earth to be invaded by
such a foe just then ; for it had so long been the
chosen retreat of Jesus, and its three inmates
had been so long His dearest friends, that the
keeping of it at least free from the desolation
of death might have seemed essential to the
comfort of the Lord Himself, to say nothing of
the comfort of these close friends of His. Yet
sorrow of the deepest kind came suddenly down,
149

150 BESIDE THE GRAVE
and over their loved brother's dead body the
sisters were shedding bitter tears. Did Christ
rebuke them ? Nay, He added His own holy
tears to theirs. The tenderest touch in the
picture is that which shows how " Jesus wept."
It was probably the first time they had seen their
Lord in tears ; at least it was the first time that
He and they had wept together, and over the
same thing, and He seemed in that dark hour
to be more one with them than ever.
How intensely human these tears of His !
He knew that Lazarus was not lost to them, and
yet He wept. He knew that, in a few moments
more, intensest joy would fill these mourning
hearts, and yet He wept. He knew that almost
immediately they would have garments of praise
instead of the spirit of heaviness, and yet He
wept. It was intensely human, intensely sym
pathetic, intensely beautiful, and intensely com
forting as well ; and it is a very suggestive fact
that the Gospel by John — the gospel which
more fully than any other shows us the real
Godhead of Jesus. — is the Gospel in which
His perfect humanity also comes most clearly
into view. It shows us that He who was Divine
enough to raise the dead was human enough to
weep with those that were mourning the dead ;
Divine enough to dry the mourner's tears, yet
human enough to shed tears Himself.

BESIDE THE GRAVE 151
We are all made sadly familiar with the
ravages of death as we witness the frequent
funeral processions that pass along our streets,
or see one family after another putting on the
mourner's dress ; but how much more keenly
we realise the horror of death when it comes
into our own happy home or into the circle of
our dear companionships. So was it with the
Lord Himself, who was "in all things made like
unto His brethren," for that home in Bethany
was probably the first place where the grim
horror of death had come closely home to His
own human affections. Why did He weep ?
Was it not just because He knew so well what
sorrow needs ? It needs sympathy above all
else, and though He had larger blessings in store
for these weeping ones, He gave them that one
first of all. How near this brings Him to us
all ! how specially near to sad-hearted weepers
in the death-chamber or at the grave ! Then
is His chosen time for showing the sympathy of
His tender loving heart. We never know how
tender His consoling voice can be till some
crushing sorrow comes, just as a mother may
let her child run about from room to room, or
go outside for play, and take small notice of it
so long as it is perfectly happy and well ; but,
when accident or sickness comes, runs quickly
to take it into her arms and lay it upon her

152 BESIDE THE GRAVE
breast, and lavish over it all her most endearing
words. Is it not God Himself Who says, " As
one whom his mother comforteth, so will I
comfort you " ? J
But comfort is not the only thing we need, if
the graves of our beloved are to be made places
of true blessing to our souls. Standing there,
many solemn thoughts may well stir within us,
many serious self-questionings, many deep heart-
searchings may come. The life of the dead is
sure to be reviewed, many half-forgotten inci
dents in it are sure to be recalled, and our own
life in relation to the dead will be reviewed as
well. Happy they who, at such a time, will
not have to weep over remembered harshnesses
and bitternesses, over biting words that made
a loving heart ache for days, over selfishnesses
and sins that hastened the death so mourned at
last, and made it a heavier sorrow than it would
otherwise have been, because reparation is now
an impossible thing !
Even where there is nothing of this, and the
remembrances are only sweet, to stand at the
grave is still a solemn thing. It brings us closer
to eternal realities than almost anything else
can do. No doubt the impressiveness of it may
soon pass away. It often does. The gracious
and sanctified feelings awakened by the dead
1 Isa. lxvi. 13.

BESIDE THE GRAVE 153
face may be short-lived. They often are. But
the heart must be hard indeed that has not had
some deep yearnings after holiness and heaven
in an hour like that ; and God means the bitter
sorrow not only to lift our eyes heavenward but
to turn them inward too, that we may ask our
selves what death will mean to us — an eternal
gain, or only an eternal loss ? a loving home-call,
or only a banishment from the home of love and
peace for ever ?
There is something very humbling in the
necessity for the burial of our dead. It is painful
beyond words when the body that had long
enshrined a bright and beautiful spirit becomes
so corrupt that we can no longer bear to look
upon it, and we say, like Abraham, " Give me a
sepulchre that I may bury my dead out of my
sight." And yet the resting-place of the lifeless
clay is holy ground, and a visit to it may be a
very sanctifying thing. Say what we will of the
sadness of the grave, there is a mournful satis
faction in looking at the place where loved ones
He. The mother of the sailor-boy who was
buried at sea will often feel that it would have
been an unspeakable comfort to her had she
been able to bury him in the village churchyard,
where she might go now and then to weep
as she scattered flowers upon his grave, and
fancy him not very far away. It is a natural

154 BESIDE THE GRAVE
feeling, and God can make it a means of
grace. But, whether the grave is thus visited or not,
the separation made by death is always a solemn
thing. How it would sweeten the parting if
each were assured of the other's faith ! How
different many a leave-taking would be, if both
knew that it was only for a little while, and that
the reunion would be everlasting ! How blessed
for mourners left in tears to know assuredly that
those who are gone have only departed " to be
with Christ " ! and this bright assurance may
be the comfort of all whose friends gave evidence,
ere they fell asleep, that they had really been
" living by faith in the Son of God Who loved
them and gave Himself for them."
We often speak of our sorrows as being God's
strange answers to many of our prayers, prayers
for greater holiness of heart and life, for more
perfect detachment of spirit from the world, and
for a deepening of faith. But do we ever think
that in the death of our beloved who have gone
home to heaven there has been only an answer
to the greater prayer of Christ Himself ? Why
was it that that dear one was taken from your
side, and from the love-grasp that would have
held it longer if it could ? Was it not because
while you were praying, almost in agony, " Father,
let this dear one whom Thou hast given me be

BESIDE THE GRAVE 155
still with me where I am," Christ was praying,
" Father, I will that this one whom Thou hast
given me be with me where I am " ; 1 and His
prayer prevailed over yours, as it was right it
should, for yours was ignorant but His was wise ;
yours was love, but His was love deeper still ?
Can you grudge your Lord that answer to a
prayer of His ?
Our eyes behold Thee not,
Yet hast Thou not forgot
Those who have placed their hope, their trust, in Thee ;
Before Thy Father's face
Thou hast prepared a place,
That where Thou art there they may also be.
Sarah E. Miles.
1 John xvii. 24.

THE SORROW OF THE HOPELESS

Leave all to God : thy vision cannot scan
His ways of Righteousness, His depths of grace;
But thou shalt know, when thou dost see His face.
How full of holy love His perfect plan.
Leave all to God : but hear Him speak to thee,
" Cling thou the more to Me when clouds are dark,
Make sure that thou thyself art in the Ark ;
All else thou then wilt calmly leave to Me."

XVIII
THE SORROW OF THE HOPELESS
THERE are no mourners more intensely to
be pitied than those who have seen loved
friends die without leaving behind them any good
hope that they have gone into the Everlasting
Peace ; and that sorrow is intensified a hundred
fold if these friends had been living a regardless
life of sin. Grief like this is dark indeed, and
must always be touched with a very gentle,
delicate, and sympathetic hand. Yet, at such
a time, the mourners are sorely tempted to put
aside all the solemn teachings of the New Testa
ment regarding the fate of the Christless soul,
and to cheat themselves into the idea that they
do not really mean what they seem plainly to
say. No clearer words regarding the sad fate of the
impenitent were ever uttered than by Him who
was Incarnate Love, and whose whole mission of
love was expressly to prevent any one from
159

J6o THE SORROW OF THE HOPELESS
incurring that fate ; and, in our eager desire to
comfort the mourning, we dare not deny or
even minimise the solemnity of these words of
His. This, however, is often done by the mourners
themselves. They try to comfort themselves by
such sayings as these, " He gave no evidence of
real faith in Christ, of renewal of heart and life,
of preparation for eternity, of love to God and
obedience to His will, and yet he had so many
attractive qualities, such kindliness, generosity,
uprightness, unselfishness, that surely he cannot
be shut out from heaven " ; or, " God is too
merciful to doom His creatures in such a way,
and His threatenings must mean something far
less appalling than they seem to do " ; or, " The
great sufferings of life here were sufficient punish
ment, and sufficient atonement too " ; or,
" There will be a new probation beyond the
grave " ; or, " The fire of which Christ spoke
will be only a purifying, cleansing fire, doing
hereafter what was not done here, and so fitting
the soul for eternal blessedness at last . ' ' Theories,
conjectures, hopes like these are a common
resource of grief-torn hearts ; and most gladly
would one echo them if it were possible. But
they will not do. The very conscience protests
against some of them, and the others are con
tradicted by the only Book that can speak
authoritatively on the matter ; for, in all its

THE SORROW OF THE HOPELESS 161
teachings regarding life's opportunities, the note
of finality is the predominant one. Renewal
and salvation are to be experienced here, and
not hereafter : what we are on this side death,
that only will we be beyond it. One naturally
shrinks from obtruding this truth upon a heart that
is deeply crushed ; but we dare not minimise it.
It is too plainly written to be denied ; and in
comforting our brethren we dare not be un
faithful to God.
Is there then no relief ? The only possible
relief is — and to the heart of faith it is sufficient —
to fall back upon the great words, " Shall not the
Judge of all the earth do right ? " 1 God is
Love, but He is also the Absolutely Righteous
One, and we may be certain that upon any of
His doings, however terrible they may be, not
the least shadow of injustice will be allowed to
rest. By Him as Judge, not only some but all
the circumstances of each case will be tenderly
taken into account. All possible mitigations of
blame will be mercifully considered. The force
of evil upbringing and evil environment, the
power of inherited predisposition to sin, the
subtlety of temptation, the ineffectual resistances
of the heart to sin that enslaved it notwithstand
ing, all these will be impartially allowed for. Even
the faintest signs of real repentance at the very
1 Gen. xviii. 25. II

162 THE SORROW OF THE HOPELESS
last, signs distinguishable only by Him, will
receive their full value at His hands, and His
verdict will be " according to truth," so abso
lutely and so transparently just when revealed
to all, that it will command the assent of every
conscience that hears it. The reply of every
heart will then be like the " great voice of much
people in heaven saying Alleluia ! glory and
honour and power to the Lord our God, for true
and righteous are His judgments." '
There is a striking passage in Leviticus which
shows how even so overwhelming a sorrow as
this can be accepted by a heart of faith. When
Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, sinned
defiantly, and seemingly in a state of intoxica
tion, by offering strange fire before the Lord,
" there went out a fire from the Lord and de
voured them, and they died." s How did Aaron
take that sudden judgment-stroke that cut
down his two sons in the very act of sin ? He
rebelled for a moment, but when Moses showed
him the Righteousness of God in the judgment,
and told him that the purpose of it was that
others must be deterred from like sin, and so
the name of God be glorified, " Aaron held his
peace." That attitude of acquiescence in God's
righteousness is the only befitting attitude for
those who have to mourn as Aaron did. Per-
1 Rev. xix. i. 2 Lev. x.

THE SORROW OF THE HOPELESS 163
haps the effect of such a stroke may often be still
what it was then, a glorifying of God on the part
of the living. If such a death should awaken
others to a truer sense of their sin, and stir within
them a new desire to live to God ; if it should
bring home to others the imperative necessity
for a true faith in Christ, if they are not to
miss heaven too, even so terrible a death will
glorify God, and the ways of God will be
justified in the feelings of all to whom their own
salvation and the honour of God in the world
are dear.
But the great consolation lies in looking straight
up to God Himself, saying, " I know, O Lord,
that Thy judgments are right," and asking only
for that meek submission to His holy Righte
ousness in which is peace. Perhaps it was when
thinking of the tragic death of his son Absalom
that David said, " I was dumb, I opened not
my mouth, because Thou didst it." l That is
not an easy thing to say. It needs a strong
faith to say it : and yet what else can the heart
of faith say than that ?
Get nearer to God yourself, crushed heart ;
think of this sore grief as meant to draw yourself
at least nearer to Him. Leave it to Him to
explain his own Righteousness at last, as He
assuredly will. Believe that when you see every-
1 Ps. xxxix. 9.

164 THE SORROW OF THE HOPELESS
thing just as He does, you will say Amen to all
His doings ; and then you may get some comfort
by realising more the blessedness of being your
self an heir of heaven, if you really are such, able
to say, " Though my house be not so with. God
yet hath He made with me an everlasting covenant,
ordered in all things and sure." '
" Clouds and darkness are round about Him,
but Righteousness and Justice are the foundation
of His Throne." Get nearer to God yourself,
and the waves of sorrow will break quietly at
the foot of that high Throne, and there will be
" a great calm."
O anguished heart, nigh breaking for the dead
Who died and made no sign.
Leave them with God : perhaps, ere life had fled,
They saw, at last, the Saving Christ Who bled,
Found their atonement in the Blood He shed,
And trusted Love Divine.
1 2 Sam. xxiii. 5.

WITHIN THE VEIL

How can it be that one so mean,
So sinful, selfish, dark, unclean.
Within the Holiest stands ?
And in that Light divinely pure
That may no stain of sin endure
Lifts up rejoicing hands ?
Jesus ! the answer Thou hast given,
Thy life, Thy death, have opened heaven
And all its joys to me ;
Washed in Thy blood — oh ! wondrous grace —
I'm holy as the Holy Place
In which I worship Thee. The Changed Cross.

XIX
WITHIN THE VEIL
IT is a relief to turn from the gloom of the
last chapter and think of the assured and
perfect blessedness of those who die " in the
Lord " ; even though as to this there is less re
vealed than we long to know. Christ Himself
did not speak much to His disciples about heaven.
Archbishop Fenelon finely says : " This King
was too accustomed to the glories of His palace
to be always talking about them." But what He
did say of it He said with the accent of absolute
certainty, the certainty of one whose home it
was, and who knew it well : and yet it surprises
us to find how little He said of it after all. One
single thought, repeated in various forms, is all
we hear, the thought that its blessedness will
consist in our being with Himself — " with Me in
Paradise," " with Me where I am," " I will receive
you to Myself," that is nearly all He says ; and
yet to the heart that loves Him that is enough.
167

168 WITHIN THE VEIL
It includes all else. The realm beyond is shrouded
in impenetrable mist, but this one bright light
shines out upon it, and the heart of faith says,
" I need no more ; to be not only in the joy of
Christ, but in the very presence of Christ, in closest
and most intimate fellowship with my Redeeming
Lord, all doubt for ever gone, all separating sin
a thing for ever past, my soul and His beating in
absolute unison with one another — that is all the
heaven I need, and all that I desire." And that
is the heaven into which every ransomed spirit
enters the moment that it quits the mortal clay.
No sooner is it " absent from the body " than it
is " present with the Lord." The transition is
immediate, and it is conscious too. There is not
for the dying believer (as many imagine and many
say) a long interval of unconsciousness between
death and the resurrection. Paul speaks of " them
that sleep," but it is the body, not the soul, that
sleeps. In the sleep of the body even here,
dreams show that the soul is thoroughly awake,
though concerned with a different region than
its surrounding one ; and the expression " sleep
ing " as applied to the dead is merely a figurative
one, implying peace and rest, but not implying
anything like unconsciousness. Indeed the idea
that the soul continues in a state of virtual anni
hilation all the time that Christ is waiting for
His Kingdom is not only unscriptural but un-

WITHIN THE VEIL 169
thinkable. If it is " with Christ " in any real
sense, it must be conscious that it is, must know
and feel what that fellowship means.
The voice from heaven which John in Patmos
heard saying, " Blessed are the dead that die in
the Lord from henceforth : for they rest from
their labours and their works do follow them," !
cannot be reconciled with any theory of their
unconsciousness of their blessedness and rest,
nor can such unconsciousness be reconciled with
their joy in seeing then the fruit of their works
which they never saw below. That voice from
heaven is one of the great Benedictions, and may
almost be said to give, in a single sentence, the
whole New Testament teaching on the unseen life
of Christ's redeemed. They are " blessed " con
sciously, and blessed everlastingly, and their
blessedness is like the blessedness of Christ Him
self. They are resting from labour as Christ is
resting. Their works follow them as Christ's
works are following Him. And they too, Uke
Christ, are living in the expectation of a higher
blessedness yet to come. He is waiting for His
appearing in glory as universal King ; and they
are waiting for the resurrection-body, a body
glorious as His heavenly Body is, a body of larger
powers, fitting them for nobler service than was
possible to the former body of corruption. They
1 Rev. xiv. 13.

17© WITHIN THE VEIL
are as yet pure spirits only, " unclothed " with
the spiritual body in which they will for ever
shine and serve ; but they have that glorious
addition to their blessedness ever before them,
and they are longing to reach it.
They have perfect peace, and they are waiting
for their perfect service too. They are for ever
done with toil and unrest, and weariness and pain,
and hindrances to fellowship with one another as
well as with Christ. There are no more mis
understandings, no separations of feeling, no
self-reproaches for sin, no need for repentance,
no stirrings of remorse, such as even the best of
them often had below. They are " without fault
before the Throne of God," 1 without fault
because Christ whose likeness they wear is with
out fault ; and all the sin of the earlier life is so
completely blotted out from the very memory
that it is as though it had never been.
It is a marvellous thought that the holiness of
these " saints in light " will be of a kind far
surpassing the holiness of angels that never fell ;
and that the only thing in them that would
suggest to any inhabitant of heaven that they had
once been sinners will be the singular radiance of
the Christ-likeness in them, the altogether peculiar
brightness of His image in them marking them out
from all others as those for whom the Prince of
1 Rev. xiv. 5.

WITHIN THE VEIL 171
Glory died. It will not be any imperfection in
their holiness as compared with that of angels,
but just the surpassing perfection of it, that will
show them to have been the special subjects of
absolutely transforming grace.
And therefore they are nearer to Christ Him
self than angels are. " To him that overcometh,"
said Christ, " I will grant to sit with Me upon My
Throne " ; x and that Throne is a Throne of
judgment as well as of dignity and glory. Paul
says " the saints shall judge the world," " know
ye not that we shall judge angels ? " How mar
vellously complete must be their likeness in
thought and feeling and conscience and equity
of discrimination to Christ Himself, if they can
be assessors with Him on the Judgment Throne,
and be trusted to do the work of judgment as
faithfully as he !
A statement like this seems almost unbeliev
able ; and we can easily sympathise with the
feelings of the Chinese convert who was assisting
in the translation of the Scriptures into his native
tongue, and who, when he came to Rev. iii. 21,
laid down his pen, and with the tears of a beauti
ful humility running down his face, said, " Oh !
it is too much, too much, let me rather write,
¦ they shall be permitted to kiss My feet.' " But
there the words stand, " To sit with Me upon My
1 Rev. iii. 21.

172 WITHIN THE VEIL
Throne " ; and they are Christ's own words to
every overcomer here.
Do they seem too great for even Him to use ?
We have only to grasp the full meaning of that
word " Redemption " to see that the perfection of
a redeemed soul cannot be exaggerated, for it is
a bringing of it back not merely to the happiness
and holiness of unfallen men, or of unfallen angels,
but to the absolutely perfect and unlosable
holiness and happiness of Christ Himself.
Let the mourner think of it — think of those who
have died in the Lord as being now not only
saints in the fullest sense of the word, but saints
in light, so pure that even in the blaze of the glory
of God they are unabashed, " presented faultless
in the presence of His glory, with exceeding joy "
— their own joy, and also the exceeding joy of
the Christ who died to win them, and finds in
having them beside Him, holy as Himself, the
reward of that Love that took Him to the Cross.
Think of it — and could you wish them back to
earth again ?
Only " Good-night ! " beloved, not " Farewell ! "
A little while and all His saints shall dwell
In hallowed union, indivisible ;
" Good-night ! "
Sarah Doudney.

THE ETERNAL HOME

Dark streams are still dividing
Between my Lord and me ;
Time's midnight hills are hiding
The land I fain would see.
But oh ! the wondrous morrow !
Life without pain or loss —
The Saints without their Sorrow,
And Christ without the Cross !
O Lord, recall Thy banished,
And home Thy weary bring,
To view, where night has vanished,
Their Country and their King !
A. R. Cousin.

XX
THE ETERNAL HOME
AN abiding and sinless Home for God's re
deemed is the final consolation for all the
sorrows of time. But where will it be ? and
what will life in it be like ? These questions
cannot be fully answered yet, for we know not
by eye, or ear, or heart what God has prepared
for them that love Him ; still, enough is revealed
to make our conceptions of the final blessedness
more definite than we sometimes fancy they can
be. Where the spirits of the blessed dead at present
are we know not, except that they are " with
Christ " ; but we have more than hints of where
they shall be when clothed with the spiritual
bodies that will be given them at His glorious
appearing. Then only will they be completely
fitted for their eternal Home, and then only will
the Home be ready for them ; and Scripture
seems plainly to suggest that that final Home
175

175 THE ETERNAL HOME
will be just this earth of ours after it has been
purified from all the marks and effects of sin by
the last judgment -fires, and made " a new heaven
and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness."
The parallel drawn by the apostle Peter l between
the purging of the old world by the flood and the
purging of the present world by fire, seems clearly
to point to this. The future Home, however
spiritual, will certainly also be a material one, a
new earth but still an earth, an earth suited to its
new inhabitants but still an earth, an earth as
pure as when it first came forth from its Creator's
hands, and not merely pure for the moment with
the possibility of sin entering it again, but
eternally and indefeasibly pure — as completely
beyond all risk of defilement as the dwellers in it
will be beyond all risk of a second fall. What
more divinely fitting consummation of God's
redeeming work could there be than this — first
a redeeming of the spirit, then a redeeming of the
body, and then a redeeming of the very earth
itself ? It is a prospect that entirely satisfies the
heart that this very world, so long the scene of
Satan's malignant rule, should be the scene of
Christ's eternal victory, that just where all un
righteousness has reigned, universal righteousness
should shine, that the same earth where God's
saints have suffered and wept should be the earth
1 2 Peter iii.

THE ETERNAL HOME 177
where all memorials of sorrow have disappeared
and where tears are for ever wiped away.
Imagine what this earth, even as we know it
to-day, would be if, for one week only, every
heart in it was holy, if every feeling was obedience
to God and love to man, if there were no fightings
for pre-eminence, no cruelties, no jealousies, no
heartburnings, no wrongs of any kind. Imagine
next, that week expanded into a year, the year
into a century, the century into eternity ; could
there be a more entrancing picture of blessedness
than that ? Then add the fact that all the dwellers
there will be endowed with the marvellous new
glories and powers of the " spiritual body "
fashioned like to the glorified body of the Son of
Man, and we have the final touch that makes the
blessedness complete.
When Paul says, " Who shall change the body
of our humiliation that it may be fashioned like
to the body of His glory," 1 he supposes us to know
what the body of His glory was ; and we imme
diately think of that body in which he moved on
this very earth for forty days after His resurrec
tion from the grave, and see in it a specimen of
what the risen bodies of His saints shall be. It
was a body of marvellously intensified power, a
body that knew no hindrances or disabilities
either from outward space or from inward weari-
1 Phil. iii. 21, R.V. 12

178 THE ETERNAL HOME
hess, a body that stone walls could not exclude
nor earth's gravitation detain, a body that could
assume different forms and be visible or invisible
at will, a body so like the old that He remained
" that same Jesus," and yet so changed that many
who once had known Him well failed to recognise
Him when they met, and one doubting heart, at
least, required a sight of the prints of the cruci
fixion-nails to convince him that it was really He.
It was a body of marvellously enhanced beauty
too, all traces of the sorrows and sufferings that
had made Him look prematurely old having
utterly disappeared, a body so shining with an
indefinable glory that those who used before to
talk familiarly to Him kept at a reverential distance
from Him, worshipping Him as the Lord, instead
of speaking to Him in their old homely way as to
an earthly friend. He seemed to be living, for
these forty days, in a region of mystery. His
appearances were called " showings of Himself,"
implying that ordinarily He was invisible, and
needed to put on a visible form to be seen at all.
His comings and goings were like those of a spirit,
and yet He was not a spirit, for He said, " Handle
Me and see ; a spirit has not flesh and bones as
ye see Me to have."
We cannot therefore go wrong if, in reply to
the question, " How are the dead raised up, and
with what body do they come ? " we point to the

THE ETERNAL HOME 179
glorified Christ of these forty days and say, "When
He shall appear we shall be like Him," set free
from all present limitations and disabilities,
having bodily powers as yet unknown, fitting us
for great services from which we are now de
barred, able to move unhindered over all God's
fair creation, and explore the wonders of it now
concealed, to become acquainted, perhaps, with
other worlds as well, and to serve, it may be, as
God's messengers of grace to them.
But however this may be, the new earth will
at least be a sphere of utter happiness as well as
of utter holiness, a place where the sacred and
hallowed companionships of this world will be
resumed, and wider companionships be given —
where the saints of all ages, " a multitude that
no man can number," will become known to each
other, and talk to each other of the grace that
brought them there — where every intellectual
faculty and every social feeling, and every pure
affection will have room for expansion to the
uttermost— where the knowledge of God will
continually increase, and love to God become
deeper every moment, and where the glad service
of God and of one another will go on in hitherto
unimagined ways — and all this with the help of
angels who for millions of ages have bathed in
that love of God and served Him without sin. It
is a prospect, surely, of surpassing joy, and what

180 THE ETERNAL HOME
infinite consolation there is in the hope of it for
those especially who have long been sorrowing
from bereavement and lonehness and weakness
here. It is the last and greatest of all the con
solations of God, and it is bound up with the
" glorious appearing " of Jesus Christ. It is
the crowning joy that awaits us " at His coming,"
and the hope of that coming must assuredly,
therefore, be " a blessed hope." It is striking
to note how constantly this, and nothing short of
this, is presented as the great consolation of
suffering and weary souls. " Let not your heart
be troubled," said Jesus. Why ? Because you
will soon follow me through death, and death will
bring us together again ? Not so. "I will come
again and receive you unto myself." 1 "Ye men
of Galilee," said the angels, " why stand ye gazing
up into heaven ? this same Jesus shall " — what ?
Soon take you away from sorrow by death ? Not
so. " Shall so come in like manner as ye have seen
Him go." 2 " The Lord shall descend from heaven
with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and
the trump of God " — so says Paul to the sorrow
ful of his day. " The dead in Christ shall rise first,
then we who are alive and remain shall be caught
up together with them in the clouds to meet the
Lord in the air ; wherefore comfort one another
with these words." * So it always is. Not our
1 John xiv. 3. 2 Acts i. 11. 3 1 Thess. iv. 16-8.

THE ETERNAL HOME 181
going to the Lord in death, but the Lord's coming
for us in glory is the grand consolation and hope.
The early Christians were described as those who
" love His appearing," who " wait for God's Son
from heaven." Could most Christians now be so
described ? Has not this joyous hope, this eager
longing for the Lord's personal return, almost
died out of the Church ? We lose immensely by
this. Both for the quickening of zeal and for
victory over sorrow and despair, we need to have
this blessed hope a far more constant inmate of
the breast. Sorrow and sighing would far more
quickly fly away, if we but listened more joyfully
to the sweet words, " I will see you again, and
your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man
taketh from you." If He who so intensely loves
us says, " Surely I come quickly," well may
every heart that loves Him say, " Amen, even
so, Come, Lord Jesus."
The whole creation groans
And waits to hear that Voice
That shall restore her comeliness,
And make her wastes rejoice.
Come, Lord, and wipe away
The curse, the sin, the stain ;
And make this blighted world of ours
Thine own fair world again.
Come then, Lord Jesus, Come !
H. Bonar.

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The Best Things in Life
A Message for the Day
Daily Readings for a Year
LONDON : HODDER & STOUGHTON

A NEW SERIES
By Dr. J. R. Miller
THE POPULAR AUTHOR OF
The " Silent Times " Series
DEVOTIONAL HOURS
WITH THE BIBLE
BY THE
Rev. J. R. Miller, D.D.
To be completed in eight Volumes
Price 5/- each
Vol. I. — From the Creation to the Crossing of
the Red Sea.
Vol. II. — From the Crossing of the Red Sea to the
close of David's Life.
Vol. III. — The Gospel according to Matthew.
Vol. IV. — The Historical Books from Solomon to
Malachi.
"Dr. J. R. Miller has conceived the happy idea of writing a con
tinuous devotional comment upon the leading and representative
chapters ofthe Bible. .. . The present volume reaches the fourteenth
chapter of Exodus. It is an excellent example of Dr. Miller's spiritual
suggest! veness." — British Weekly.
" The new series of Scripture studies by Dr. J. R. Miller — Devotional
Hours with the Bible— will very naturaUy be welcomed with deep
satisfaction, for it is in the opening up of the Word of God along such
lines as the title indicates that our friend is at his best. . . . All over
the English-speaking world. Dr. Miller, is known as a thoughtful and
suggestive writer, and his latest effort is in harmony with such a reputa
tion. It is admirably adapted for the needs of an age which seems to
have too little leisure for meditation." — Christian.
LONDON : HODDER & STOUGHTON

WORKS BY S. D. GORDON
Quiet Talks on
Personal Problems
Price 2/6 net
Mr. Eugene Stock writes : " Excellent in every way. I
never saw the subject of sin so powerfully treated as in the first
book." Rev. Principal Griffith Thomas, D.D., writes : " Marked
by great keenness of insight and remarkable aptness of illustra
tion. . . . One of the most useful of Mr. Gordon's works."
Quiet Talks with
World Winners
Price 2/6 net
' ' Mr. Gordon's new book," says the Rev. Principal Griffith
Thomas, D. D. , "is one of the most striking missionary appeals
I have ever read. It is a book to be pondered, prayed over, and
practised."
Quiet Talks about
the World's Saviour
Price 2/6 net
The Life of Faith calls it "a brave, honest book, written by
one endowed with independence of mind and a gift of fresh
and clear vision."
Calvary
I/- net
" We think Mr. S. D. Gordon is at his best in this booklet.
It is quite refreshing to find the old doctrines so clearly and
definitely set forth as they are in these pages. As in all his
writings, Mr. Gordon arrests the attention of the reader by the
fresh and vivid manner in which he restates old truths." —
English Churchman.
LONDON : HODDER & STOUGHTON

DR. ANDREW A. BONAR
Andrew A. Bonar, D.D.
Diary and Letters. Transcribed and Edited by his
daughter, MARJORY BONAR. New and Popular
Edition, with Portrait. 2/6 net.
The Life of Faith says: — "We are very glad to announce
that a popular edition of Dr. Bonar' s ' Diary and Letters ' has
just been issued. Many will be glad to know that the spiritual
classic can now be had for 2/6."

Wayside Wells
Portions for Sabbath Evenings selected from the Writings
and Sermons of Dr. Andrew Bonar, by his Daughter,
MARJORY BONAR. Prices, 1/6 net cloth, 2/6 net
leather.
Those who have read the selectipns from the writings of
Dr. Andrew Bonar in " Heavenly Springs" will know what to
expect in choice thought and rare riches of spiritual experience
from this dainty companion volume.
Heavenly Springs
Portions for the Sabbaths of the Year from the Diary,
Letters, and Sermons of the Rev. Andrew Bonar, D.D.,
by his daughter, MARJORY BONAR. Prices, 1/6 net
cloth, 2/6 net leather.
" A devotional book of rare beauty. Dr. Bonar's daughter —
Marjory Bonar — has collected in this volume a number of
portions from his diary, letters, and sermons, and has arranged
them for the Sundays of a year. It is a volume upon which one
can meditate with profit." — Record.
LONDON : HODDER & STOUGHTON

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