In the balm and the blossoming.
Sing loud, O bird in the tree;
0 bird, sing loud in. the sky,
And honey-bees blacken the clover seas ; There are none of you glad as I.
The leaves laugh low in the wind,
Laugh low with the wind at play; And the odorous call of the flowers all
Entices my soul away !
For O but the world is fair, is fair:
And 0 but the world is sweet ! I will out in the gold of the blossoming mould,
And sit at the Master's feet.
And the love my heart would speak,
1 would fold in the lily's rim.
That the lips of the blossom, more pure and meek, May offer it up to Him.
Then sing in the hedgerow green, 0 thrush,
O skylark, sing in the blue; Sing loud, sing clear, that the King may hear.
And my soul shall sing with you!^
(2) When we are specially depressed and in fear. — There are times when the burdens of life's unintelligible secret rest upon us with a weight almost too heavy to be borne. There are so many things which it seems to us infinitely important that we should
^ Anna Bunston, Tlie Porch of Paradise, xi. ^ Inn. T)o?ma Coolbvitli.
74 GOD WHO IS OUR HOME
know, but about which we yet know almost nothing. Mystery circumscribes our little lives as with a wall of adamant ; we can hardly advance one single step in thought without dashing ourselves against it; we know not what we are, we know not whence we came, we know not whither we are going, and none can tell us. We cry aloud for surer knowledge, and while to the forward and presumptuous there comes back no answer except the echo of their own voice, even for humble and faithful questioners there is only the whisper, " What I do thou knowest not now ; but thou shalt know hereafter." There is silence and there is darkness. Our vaunted science cannot break that silence and cannot dissipate that gloom.
The eternal God is our refuge from the unsearchable mystery of life. We cannot escape from mystery. It grows with our growing knowledge. What a world this is in which we live, and how awful in some of its aspects is our life in it ! Does it not require something more than our little systems and schemes to keep the mind and soul in strength and peace in the midst of this troubled world and troubled life ? Where else can we find the sense of shelter and security than where Moses found it long ago ? "The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the ever- lasting arms." Let us yield nothing to our fears. That the Unknown and the Unknowable may be trusted is the message of religion. Our discipleship to Jesus Christ inspires this lofty confidence in the beneficence of the universe, in a universe essentially good and making for goodness — a confidence which is the anticipation of much that modern knowledge is now slowly declaring. In the companionship and fellowship of the Son of God we know that where His trust was in Gethsemane and on Calvary ours can ever rest. " Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit."
^ Often as a child I have trembled to cross at night the court- yard of a lonely country mill. Every little object that moonlight or starlight revealed in other than natural proportions was a source of fear — seemed to hide shapes terrible to childish flesh and blood. But if my little hand was laid in the large hand of my father, I could cross the courtyard as gleefully and carelessly at night as at noonday. So, with our spirits held in the hands of the eternal God, who is above, around, and before, the dark places of Life, Death, and the great For Ever become light ; and, trusting where
TEUTERONOMY xxxiii. 27 75
we cannot <3ee, our steps are firm, when otherwise they would falter and fail.^
^ I suppose some brethren have neither much elevation nor much depression. I could almost wish to share their peaceful life, for I am much tossed up and down, and although my joy is greater than that of most men, my depression of spirit is such as few can have any idea of. This week has been in some respects the crowning week of my life, but it closed with a horror of great darkness, of which I will say no more than this — I bless God that at my worst, underneath me I found the everlasting arms.^
^ Till last night I never knew what depression was. I had no illness; one or two things had happened to grieve me, but still they were comparatively slight; but I never felt so thoroughly downcast about myself and all the world, or so bitter and serious a struggle within me. It tore me through and through, yet it was a great mercy and a special answer to prayer; for having previously felt my own indifference and want of real sense of danger, I had entreated to be bruised and brought low to feel the burthen, that I might appreciate what deliverance might be, and it was granted ; consequently this morning I felt such as I had never felt before at the whole service and communion. I never till then had an adequate notion of the power and beauty of our Liturgy, and, on the other hand, of its inferiority to the Word of God. I gained some faint idea of what the Bible was ; I felt the glorious depth of the declaration, " Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept," a passage which I had merely understood before.^