^ Have not I myself known five hundred living soldiers sabred into crows'-meat for a piece of glazed cotton, which they called their Flag ; which, had you sold it at any market- cross, would not have brought above three groschen ? Did not the whole Hungarian nation rise, like some tumultuous moon- stirred Atlantic, when Kaiser Joseph pocketed their Iron Crown ; an implement, as was sagaciously observed, in size and commercial value little differing from a horse-shoe? It is in and through Symbols that man, consciously or unconsciously, lives, works, and has his being : those ages, moreover, are accounted the noblest which can the best recognize symbolical worth, and prize it the highest. For is not a Symbol ever, to him who has eyes for it, some dimmer or clearer revelation of the Godhke?!
I Nature everywhere bears the touch of God. The vast universe is a collection of tokens; the whole system of worlds is a revelation of Divine covenants which the invisible God desires to publish. There are hours when one feels this and sings —
0 earth! thou hast not any wind which blows,
That is not music; every reed of thine.
Pressed rightly, flows with aromatic wine.
And every humble hedge-row flower that grows,
And every little brown bird that doth sing.
Hath something greater than itself, and bears
A living word to every living thing.
Albeit it holds its message unawares.
All shapes and sounds have something which
Is not of them; a spirit broods amidst the grass;
Vague outlines of the everlasting thought
lie in the melting shadows as they pass ; »
^ Oarlyle, Sartor Resartus, bk. iii. ch. S
176 THE RAINBOW
The touch of an Eternal Presence thrills
The fringes of the sunsets and the hills.
Sometimes (we know not how, nor why, nor whence)
The twitter of the swallow 'neath the eaves,
The shimmer of the light among the leaves,
Will strike up through the thick roots of our sense
And show us things which seers and sages saw
In the green earth's gray dawn; something doth stir
Like organ-rhymes within us and doth awe
Our pulses into listening, and confer
Burdens of being on us; and we ache
With weights of revelations; and our earg
Hear voices from the Infinite that take
The, hushed soul captive.
^ Very beautiful is this idea of God giving us something to look at, in order to keep our faith steady. He knows that we need pictures, and rests, and voices, and signs, and these He has well supplied. We might have forgotten the word, but we cannot fail to see the how ; every child sees 't, and exclaims at the sight with glad surprise. If any one would tell the child the sweet meaning of the bow, it might move his soul to a still higher ecstasy ! And so with all other things God has given us as signs and tokens: the sacred Book, the water of Baptism, the bread and wine, the quiet Sabbath, the house of prayer; — all these have deeper meanings than are written in their names; search for those meanings, keep them, and you will be rich.^
ii. A Token of a Covenant
1. The covenant is that there shall not be any more a flood to destroy the earth, and the token of the covenant is the bow in the cloud. But was there not a rainbow before there was a flood? Of course there was. You do not suppose that the rainbow was made on purpose? There were rainbows, it may be, thousands of ages before man was created, certainly from the time that the sun and the rain first knew each other. But old forms may be put to new uses. Physical objects may be clothed with moral meanings. The stars in heaven and the sand by the seashore may come to be to Abraham as a family register. One day common bread may be turned into sacra-
i Joseph Parker.
GENESIS IX. 13 177
mental food, and ordinary wine may become as the blood of atonement! The rainbow which was once nothing but a thing of evanescent beauty, created by the sun and the rain, hence- forward became the token of a covenant and was sacred as a revelation from heaven. When you Kved in a rich English county the song of the lark was nothing to you, it was so familiar; you had heard the dinning trill of a hundred larks in the morning air ; but when you went out to the far-away colony, and for years did not hear the voice of a single home bird, you suddenly caught the note of a lark just brought to the land, and the tears of boyhood streamed down your cheeks as you listened to the little messenger from home. To hear it was like hearing a gospel. From that day the lark was to you as the token of a covenant !
^ In speaking to Noah God did not then create the bow ; He turned it into the sign of a holy bond. The fear is that we may have the bond and not the oath. We may see physical causes producing physical effects, and yet may see no moral significa- tion passing through the common scenery of earth and sky. Cultivate the spirit of moral interpretation if you would be wise and restful; then the rainbow will keep away the flood; the fowls of the air will save you from anxiety ; and the lilies of the field will give you an assurance of tender care. Why, everything is yours ! The daisy you trod upon just now was telling you that if God so clothe the grass of the field He will much more clothe the child that bears Hia own image.^