^ E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, i. 298.
' Browning, Ch/ristTruu-JSve cund EcuUr-Day, Ti.
GENESIS IX. 13 173
farther, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed. The torrent of affliction may swell and rise, and toss the heart on its heaving bosom; but God sits above the flood, enthroned for ever, and under His restraining hand it is not suflfered to overflow or to deal utter ruin. This is the message of the rainbow — that smile set in the still frowning heavens. It is the message echoed by the Psalmist's confession : " God hath chastened me very sore ; but he hath not given me over unto death."
The rainbow is a child of the storm ; and it is very beautiful. It springs out of the conflict between light and darkness; it is caused by the sun of heaven shining upon the fast-dripping tears of earth. It tells, and will always teU, that nothing very beautiful ever comes to pass in human life, except there be sorrow. It tells, and will always tell, that sorrow alcme cannot give birth to this beauty of human life and character. It needs the fast-falling tears of sorrow and sadness below ; but it needs also the sunshine, the light, and the glory, from heaven above. People are always wondering why there should be sorrow and suffering ; why human tears should flow so freely. There really is not any answer but what the rainbow gives, or at least suggests. Say what you like; be as impatient of sufferiag as you will ; you will yet have to acknowledge, as a fact, that in human character there is hardly anything very beautiful, very attractive, but it has suffering for a necessary condition ; suffering lighted up by love.
Through gloom and shadow look we
On beyond the years; The soul would have no rainbow
Had the eyes no tears.
1 We are like him of whom the poet sings —
Eesolve Upbore him, and firm faith, and evermore Prayer from a living source within the will, And beating up thro' all the bitter world. Like fountains of sweet water in the sea, Kept him a living soul.
We hear of those upon whom there has fallen some sorrow which seems calculated to destroy all the worth of life. "He will never be the same man ; she will never be the same woman
174 THE RAINBOW
again " — so we exclaim. And yet, though the stricken ones reel under the blow, they do not fall, or if they fall they rise again. Some secret well-spring within is opened, and pours forth its healing stream.^
H An old couple, who greatly glorified God by their glad lives, were asked : " And have you never any clouds ? " " Clouds ! " said the old woman, " Clouds ! Why, yes indeed, else where would all the blessed showers come from ? " *
IF A friend of mine yesterday, when he was told there was a rainbow, looked for it in the direction of the sun. He evidently did not know better. God never puts rainbows in the direction of the light. There is no need of them so long as you can see the sun shining as gloriously as it did yesterday afternoon. It is when you have to look at the cloud that you want a rainbow. Thus you will always find that if the sun is in the east the rainbow is in the west. Hence the old saying —
The rainbow in the morning Is the shepherd's warning; The rainbow at night Is the shepherd's delight.'
n.
The Rainbow as a Sign.
L Symbols.
In times when contracts were not reduced to writing, it was customary, on the occasion of solemn vows, promises, and other "covenant" transactions, to appoint a sign, that the parties might at the proper time be reminded of the covenant, and a breach of its observance be averted-
It has been said that a "sign is a thing which, over and above the impression which it makes upon the senses, causes something else to come into the mind." Anything, therefore, can be taken as a sign : e.g. a stone which has in itself no meaning or value, may be used as marking the boundary of a field. Not such is this sign. There is a principle here the same as that in those parables which take some object in nature or some fact in the physical world to symbolize the spiritual truth or fact, and which are properly called symbolic parables. It is ' M. Joseph. » H. S. Dyer. » D. Darie*.
GENESIS IX. 13 175
such a principle that gives the wonderful comfort found in the 125th Psalm. This rainbow had a fitness for the purpose to which it was applied, for after the appearance of an entire rainbow, as a rule no rain of long duration follows; and the darker the background the more bright does it appear. As such a sign doubtless Noah already knew it. A harbinger of the cessation of a storm was a fitting symbol of the close of that flood which was never to be repeated. The beautiful object which already had a natural adaptation to its purpose "God consecrated as the sign of His love and witness of His promise."