It was then that we could make the utterance of Jacob's patient faith our own, u I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord ; " subscribing ourselves to our fellow saints as " your companion in tribulation and in the kingdom and patience of Christ " (that is, in patient waiting for his king- dom). It was then that these words of blessed cheer fell so sweetly on our ears, " He who testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly," drawing forth from our lips the glad response, " Even so, come, Lord Jesus." And it was then that, while learning thus to plead u make haste," we also learned to say with the Bride, " A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved
and begged redemption of me. Often have I had the sensation as if nature, in wailing sadness, entreated something of me, so that, not to understand what she longed for, cut through my very heart.'* — Goethe, quoted by Olshausen on the Romans. And another has thus written : " Even in the things of the world around us there is an element of life, a yearning of what is bound, which, like that Memnon statue, unconsciously makes symphony when the ray touches it from above." Schfjbert, cited by the same.
46 THE EARNESTS OF
unto me, he shall lie all night in my bosom." (Sol. Song i. 13.)
Blessed and profitable, however, as we have found the night with its still seclusion and solemn teachings, it is not the morn- ing nor the day. And its very darkness makes us long the more for the anticipated sun-rise — for u the flight of shadows and the eternal day-break."
Nor are we hindered from desiring the day. Impatience is forbidden, but not de- sire. Let us possess our souls in patience, for he is neither the brave nor the believ- ing man who says, " Let me die, for the cup is bitterer than I can drink;" but he who under the sorest grief can say, " Let me live on and be useful, whatever may be the bitterness of the cup." But still we may long for the ending of the night. As in sickness we may long for health, and put forth all fit means for its attainment ; so in darkness we may cry earnestly for the dawning, especially because we know that
THE MORNING. 47
God has a day in store for us after the night is done — a day which is to be far more than a compensation for all previous sorrow. For every night God has pro- vided a morning, so that as we have many nights, we have also many mornings even here. They are not indeed " mornings without clouds/' but still they are morn- ings whose cheering light lifts up the heavy spirit and brightens the faded eye.
But for the world, the children of the night, the heedless, pleasure-loving world, what morning is there, or what earnest of the morning? None. Or at least it de- serves not the name of morning. Their "sorrows are multiplied," because they have hastened after other gods. Their joy is but a moment. Their consolation is no better than a dream. They serve a god that can- not save, and that cannot comfort. Their portion here at the best is emptiness ; and the end is the eternal blackness and the infinite despair. The tidings of God's
48 THE EARNESTS OF THE MORNING.
free love they heed not ; but the tidings of his wrath they shall ere long be made to heed ; if now they turn not to him who is entreating of them this one favour, that they would bring" their sins to him for pardon, and let him bear all their griefs and carry all their sorrows.
CHAPTER IV.
THE USE OF THESE EARNESTS.
" Now for a swifter race ! " was the re* golve of one over whose path sorrow was beginning to darken heavily. " Now for a busier and more useful life ! " was the utterance of another, as he rose from his knees, after pouring out the bitterness of his grief into the ear of God.
In these cases tribulation was taking its true course and working its right end. It had gone down to the most sacred depths of the renewed heart, and was calling up buried feelings of devotedness that had re* mained dormant, but not extinct, under a mass of worldliness. It smote our selfish- ness, our narrow-mindedness, our sloth,
50 THE USE OP
our flesh-pleasing, and reminded us that we had no time to loiter or to sleep. Tear- ing off the veil which prosperous days had flung over our eyes, it pointed to the vanity of things " seen and temporal/' till the vastness of the unseen and the eternal so grew upon us, that we rose up and went forth, resolving on a swifter race and a busier life on earth.
Still there was a hinderance. The very trial that stirred us up also weighed us down, unknitting our strength, and caus- ing us well nigh to faint. The pressure staid our swiftness, and the deep wound, still bleeding, enfeebled us. We sought to run, but were often held back ; and when we would have gone forth to do the work of God, we were constrained to turn aside and go alone, that, in weeping and plead- ing, we might relieve our heavy hearts. We may at times seem to escape from the sor- row, and, in the fire of zeal, almost forget its bitterness ; yet it returns to us in full