4o6 HEWING AND BUILDING
hour, but through the flight of days : what was to be said of it ? This hour seemed altogether as the last was, as the next would be.i
(3) In Grace. The beginning of the Christian life is com- monly without observation. It is true that Saul of Tarsus was felled to the earth, blinded by a sun-burst, and addressed by a voice from heaven. But even of this case it is written that those that were with him saw the light but heard not the voice. The operation of the Spirit in the human heart is not with violence. He Cometh down as rain upon the mown grass. To the majority of believers their passing out of darkness into the light is as when the traveller crosses the tropics; he cannot mark the instant. We are not scourged but wooed into the Divine arms. I have drawn thee, He says, with the cords of a man.
^ The best penitents are those whose penitence does not wear out, but is always an under-current in their daily lives. You call him a fool who starts for a long race at his greatest speed, and he who is most demonstrative in his first repentance will often be found afterwards among the backsliders.
Prune thou thy words, the thoughts control
That o'er thee swell and throng; They will condense within thy soul,
And change to purpose strong.
f As quietness is the mark of the true life, so will it mark its close. As the most beautiful sunset brings peace rather than excitement, even so will be the laying down of life. Nay, inas- much as disease is painful and the physical wrench often keen, we may say that the afterglow is brighter than the sunset itself. But, in spite of pain, the death itself is peaceful. There is little triumph in the Christian death-bed, but there is peace.
And I would pass in silence. Lord,
No brave words on my lips. Lest pride should cloud my soul, and I
Should die in the eclipse.
But when, and where, and by what pain,
All this is one to me; I only long for such a death
As most shall honour Thee.
1 Carlyle, The French Revolution, bk. ii. ch. 1.
I KINGS VI. 7 407
(4) And so, finally, in silence does the Kingdom of God come. It "cometh not with observation." This is true of its progress in the world. God is in " the still small voice," not in the wind or in the earthquake or the fire. • Christ's own career, how silent it was ! The spread of the Kingdom was unnoticed by the world's great ones — Caesars, philosophers, patricians — and it silently grew underground. So is it with the consummation of the Kingdom in glory. Earth is the Lebanon to which Heaven shall furnish the Jerusalem. Time is the noisy workshop of Eternity.
Halting between Two Opinions.
Literature.
Aitken (W. H. M. H.), Mission Sermons, i, 185. Banks (L. A.), Thirty -One Revival Sermons, 60. Brooke (S. A.), The Old Testament and Modern Life, 2G9. Brown (C), in Great Texts of the Old Testament, 135. Burrell (D. J.), The Gospel of Gladness, 80. Caird (E.), Lay Sermons and Addresses, 178. Clegg (A.), The Throne and the Voice, 62. Davies (D.), Talks with Men, Women and Children, iv. 584. Dawson (W. J.), The Threshold of Manhood, 1. Doney (C. G.), The Throne-Room of the Soul, 179. Goodwin (H.), Parish Sermons, iv. 63. Kemble (C), Memorials of a Closed Ministry, i. 167. Lees (H. C), in The Keswick Week, 1908, 162. Macaskill (M.), A Highland Pulpit, 137. Manning (H. E.), Sermons, iii. 54. Mills (B. E. v.), The Marks of the Church, 136. Minifie (W. C), The Mask Torn Off, 102. Moody-Stuart (K.), Light from the Holy Hills, 89. Pusey (E. B.), Parochial and Cathedral Sermons, 369. Kobertson (F. W.), The Human Race, 87. Selby (T. G.), The God of the Patriarchs, 273. Senior (W.), A Faithful Ministry, 69. Taylor (W. M.), Elijah the Prophet, 96. Tholuck (A.), Hours of Christian Devotion, 234. Twigg (R.), Sermons, 136. Wliiton (J. M.), New Points to Old Texts, 131. Worden (J. D. W.), Whether of the Twain ? 53. Christian World Pulpit, xiv. 309 (Anderson) ; xxviii. 41 (Rogers). Churchman's Pulpit : Eleventh Sunday after Trinity, xi. 282 (Senior), 283 (Bush).
Halting between Two Opinions.
And Elijah came near unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions ? if the Lord be God, follow him : but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word.— i Kings xviii. 21.
I.
The Situation.
1. This scene is one of the most memorable and striking in history. It represents one of those great culminating points when life suddenly becomes dramatic, when, as it were, the con- fused groups of men and women on the stage of life suddenly shift themselves into place and position, and the curtain rises on the acts of a great tragedy. Such culminations occur also in the individual life, when the still river of our days deepens, and rushes on in loud thunder, and all our scattered energies become concentrated in one vast struggle. In such moments life is felt to be infinitely significant, and we know that it fulfils itself in the open eye of the angel-crowded heavens. In such moments the character of coming centuries is determined, and individual destiny is sealed and fixed.