^ Cardinal Newman, in Life by W. Ward, ii. 76.
^ J. A. Clapperton, Culture of the Christian Heart, 142.
120 SONGS IN THE NIGHT
Why should I always pray, Although I always lack ? It were a .better way
Some praise to render back: The earth that drinks the plenteous rain Eeturns the grateful cloud again.
"We should not get the less
That we remembered more The truth and righteousness Thou keep'st for us in store : In heaven they do not pray — they sing, And they have wealth of every thing.
And it would be more meet
To compass Thee with song Than to have at Thy feet Only a begging throng Who take Thy gifts, and then forget Alike Thy goodness, and their debt.
So give me joyous Psalms,
And Hymns of grateful praise: Instead of seeking alms, A song to Thee I'll raise: Yet still I must a beggar be, When lauding Thy great charity.
But where shall I begin?
With health and daily bread ? Or cleansing of my sin ? Or light around me shed ? Till I would praise, I did not see How rich Thy gifts have been to me.^
11.
The Song in the Night,
1. It is evident that " night " is here used as a symbol of affliction and suffering ; and there is a beautiful appropriateness in the symbol which commends itself at once to our minds ; for ^ Walter C. Smith, TJwughts and Fancies for Sunday Evenings, 1.
JOB XXXV. lO 121
the shades of night, though a relief to some from toil and labour, bring to many an increase of trial and suffering. There is an untold relief in light. Whilst suffering and sorrow continue just the same, light seems to reanimate hope and endurance. Dark- ness has the opposite effect. The greatest inward conflicts take place during its long hours — sickness is doubly weary, and full of uneasiness. The unclosed eye, the unsubdued pain, the voice of sympathy hushed — all these tax often to the uttermost the patience of a Christian. These make many a man recoil from the night season. And so it must be felt at once to be a fit symbol of trial. When, then, our text speaks of God, "who giveth songs in the night," it evidently means that it belongs to Him to put songs of praise and joy into the Christian's heart in seasons of sorrow and trial. It belongs to God, and to God alone, to give such songs. A thoughtless world seeks its happiness in that which is outward — in worldly pleasure, in earthly aims, and in the creature. So long as the outward path is smooth, pleasures succeeding each other, and keeping the mind in a perpetual state of excitement — so long as success crowns those earthly aims, and either money or fame increases — so long the world has its songs, But let a change come over the scene. Let these pleasures fail, its schemes end in disappointment, and its all is gone. The world may sing in its day — its short and uncertain day. But it knows not, and can never learn, songs in the night. It cannot even understand them. The most it can do is to keep silence. But the Christian's noblest and most elevated songs are not those which he sings in the day, but those which rise up in the night-season of sorrow — songs sung with tearful eyes and a heaving heart.
^ Butterflies are said to be so sensitive to want of light that they are not only stupid at night, but are also affected in the daytime by the shadow of every passing cloud. It is a common practice of butterfly-hunters to keep their eye on an insect without pursuing it, waiting till a cloud comes, when it is nearly certain to settle down and become more or less torpid. Thus is the human soul sensitive to sorrow : the shadow of every passing cloud chills it, the deeper eclipses of life paralyse it, and these morbid hours prove not rarely the tempter's oppor- tunity.^
^ "W. L. Watkinsoi), Tlie Edttcatim of the Heart, 141.
122 SONGS IN THE NIGHT
^ Eead the lives of the great souls, and you will find almost always that their inner career begins with a period of night and darkness. With some, as with Paul, Bunyan, Tolstoy, it is a despair of themselves and their world. With others, it is a crash of the creed in which they were brought up, and a dreary scepti- cism when all their stars go out and there seems naught left but chaos and old night. It is singular that we have read so many of these experiences, and perhaps have gone through them in our turn, without asking the reason of all this. Are we not here in contact with a psychological law ; the law that, in a lower order, we perceive in the germination of the plant, in all the vital pro- cesses ? The spiritual life, like all other life, requires darkness and the deep for its starting-point ! A man must dive into his inmost recesses in order that he may find himself.^
2. What we need most is certainty of God, that we may hold fast our faith in Him, We shall still be beset by mystery, and the world's sorrow and our own pain will still remain a terrible problem, but we shall see enough to make us willing to believe and wait. We shall let every experience of trial and sorrow bring some lessons to withdraw our hearts from the love of the material. We shall learn to look upon the whole discipline of life as a means of sanctification, and in our highest moments we shall see it to be a terror to be left of God, and shall pray that the beautiful promise may be true for us : " As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you." When we do, the last word to us is not tribulation, but joy. Even suffering only sets a seal on faith, like the kiss of God upon the brow. Faith sees far enough into the meaning of tribulation to see in it the sign of love ; for it sees in it the Father's hand.