1 M. G. Pearse.
300 FORWARD !
were startled by a terrible roar. They pulled up their horses instantly and turned to each other. " That is a lion. No doubt about that," said one. " It is not safe to go on," said the other. Then each thought of the lady he loved so well, and begrudged that the rare holiday should be spoiled, and so they pushed on a few yards farther. Then came another roar, and again they stopped. "It is a lion — enraged too." And they dreaded to proceed. Along the path came a cheery old gentleman, who greeted them with a bright " Good-day," and then disappeared in front of them amongst the trees. They had called to him about the lion that threatened them, but he was stone deaf, and thinking only it was some pleasant observation about the weather, had nodded and gone on. Once more there came the roar. The horsemen, concerned more about the safety of him who had just left them than their own, said, " We must go and warn him. He is too deaf to hear the roar." Then was it, as they turned the corner, that they reached a round pool in the heart of the wood, and on the edge of it there sat a group of bull-frogs, whose thunder had melted the hearts of the lovers, and threatened their holiday. With a laugh at their own fright, they hastened on their way. "It is a lion," saith Fear. "We must stay." . . . But he who goes on shall find most commonly that it la but a bull-frog. Go forward.^
Be you still, be you still, trembling heart;
Remember the wisdom out of the old days.
He who trembles before the flame and the flood,
And the winds that blow through the starry ways,
Let the starry winds and the flame and the flood
Cover over and hide, for he hath no part
With the proud, majestical multitude.*
» M. G. Pearse. • W. B. Yeatfc
Life in God's Presence.
9»
Literature.
Brown (J. B.), T%e SouVs Exodus, 255.
Greenhough (J. G.), Christian Festivals and Anniversaries, lOt
Jowett (J. H.), The Silver Lining, 60.
M'Kim (R. H.), The Gospel in the Christian Year, 61.
Meyer (F. B.), Moses the Servant of God, 134.
Moule (H. C. G.), Thoughts for the Sundays of the Year, 9.
Price (A. C), Fifty Sermons, ix. 145.
Robarts (F. H.), Sunday Morning Talks, 6.
Vaughan (J.), Sermons (Brighton. Pulpit), vii. No. 688.
Christian World Pulpit, Ixiii. 317 (Fairbairn) ; Ixv. 22 (BrownX
Contemporary Pulpit, 2nd Ser., iii. 129 (Moore).
Homiletic Review, xxxviii. 45 (Knox).
Preachei's Magaeine (1903), xiv. 32 (Edwards).
Life in God's Presence.
My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest— Exod. xxxiii. 14.
These are the words of God's assurance, anticipating an almost agonizing supplication of Moses, "If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence." The prayer was uttered on the edge of the great wilderness. Moses was about to loose his hold on his last familiar resting-place, and commit himself and his people to its unknown wilds. All the magnitude of his great under- taking was pressing on him at that moment. " Who is sufficient
for these things ? " he cried, like one who, after the lapse of ages
a pilgrim of Sinai, too — set his hand to the conversion of a world. The Divine guidance was absolutely a question of life or deatL Thus far the ground over which the Israelites had passed was familiar marching-ground to their great leader. Moreover, their march had been a triumphal exodus from bondage. Up to Sinai, Egypt was behind them, and they had the joyous sense that they were escaping from hated and tyrannous foes. From Sinai, Canaan was before them, and the grand difficulties and perils of their enterprise began. It was the great critical point of their course. They had need of a vision of a Divine leader, whose pillar of flame should shine, not on their march only, but in their hearts.
I.
In the Wilderness.
1. Moses was the man of Israel, the man in whom all the higher life and aim of the whole community expressed itself. We study Israel through him ; and we shall get nearer to the
heart of this great matter — the Lord's guidance of the host if
we listen to his wrestling supplication, in which the intercessor was uttering the cry of a whole people, and catch the words of the answer of God, than if we were to study, as we might, the
304 LIFE IN GOD'S PRESENCE
external form of the guiding angel, marvellous, miraculous, and richly symbolic as it unquestionably is. "And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud, to lead them in the way ; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light ; to go by day and night. He took not away the pillar of cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night, from before the people." A grand, sublime symbol, amongst the greatest things in history. Think of it for a moment. Imagine that host winding through the dreary paths of the desert, lonely there as a people among peoples, as their Lord became lonely as a man among men ; cut off utterly from all national associations and sympathies; the strongest people in the world behind them, animated by the most deadly hatred, and powerful nations in front, armed to receive them and to dispute with them every inch of the inherit- ance they were resolved to win ; marching on along those solemn desert pathways, with the visible sign in the midst of them of the presence in person of the Lord God of the whole world. There, under the blazing rays of the burning noon, a soft cloud spread its cool shadow on the weary plain, and refreshed imagina- tion— and what pure refreshment that is — with the picture of the shadowing love of the Lord God Almighty over the whole wearying pilgrimage and battle march of life ! And then, as evening fell, and the glooms of night began to drop their awful shroud — for nightfall is awful in the lonely waste — over the weird forms and hues of those beetling cliffs, or the gaunt outlines of the desert palms, the cloud began to glow and lighten, till it cast a broad flood of living lustre, such as we see on earth only in dreams, on the whole scene of the desert encampment. It touched the spurs and peaks of the mountains, till they stood glowing like angel sentinels around the camp of God's redeemed, and filled the night watchers with some vision of what might be seen, if the veils were lifted, and all the heavenly armies appeared attending the path of God's host through battles and perils, through foaming seas and dreary deserts, to their glorious rest.