^ I am filled with shame and confusion when I reflect, on one hand, upon the great favours which God has bestowed and is still unceasingly bestowing upon me ; and, on the other, upon the ill use I have made of them, and my small advancement in the way of perfection. Since, by His mercy, He gives us still a little time, let us begin in earnest, let us redeem the time that is lost, let us return with a whole-hearted trust to this Father of Mercies, who is always ready to receive us into His loving arms. Let us renounce, and renounce generously, with single heart, for the
374 THE MINISTRY OF SURPRISE
love of Him, all that is not His; He deserves infinitely more. Let us think of Him unceasingly; in Him let us put all our confidence. I doubt not but that we shall soon experience the effects of it in receiving the abundance of His grace, with which we can do all things, and without which we can do nought but sin.^
^ Dr. John Brown (" Eab ") had a favourite expression, which he was constantly using — " Unexpectedness." There is much of that in life. It plays a large part in our training. Kindness comes from unexpected quarters. So does unkindness. " It was tlwu, a man mine equal, my guide and mine acquaintance." It is, as we say, the unexpected that happens. The seemingly impossible comes to pass. Often what we plan fails, and what we expect deceives, while what we neither plan nor expect occurs. The forces that work for us and against us do more than we anticipate. If some men disappoint us painfully, others do so agreeably. The timid Nicodemus was one of the foremost at Jesus' tomb. There are flowers in the desert. The beauty of holiness blooms in unexpected places. What we lean upon breaks, what seems broken stands. Ananias was a failure, Saul became Paul. How often our fears are disappointed, our hopes surpassed, our difficulties removed. The whole of life is a succession of surprises breaking its monotony. It is like a winding road, where every turn discloses something new that beguiles and draws us on. There are many of what Faber sings of — " novelties of love." You think, sometimes, that everything has been exhausted, and then God surprises you with a fresh gladness.^
^ A critic of the oratorio " Elijah " has pointed out how, after apparently exhausting every combination of sound, Mendelssohn has given one more proof of his resource, by the weird effect of a single, long-sustained note. But what is a marvel in this consummate artist is only a suggestion of the fertility of God in every life. Amiel has been described as the master of the unexpected. It is God who is its true Master. It is He who is the true Giver of surprises. No two days are alike. Our life is like a series of dissolving views. Its fashion is ever changing, God, in providence, appeals to the strange and the varied. What every child of God feels about His kindnesses is that they are new every morning, and is it not quite as true that they are fresh every evening ? Is there a day that we are not constrained to say, " Thou surprisest me with the blessings of goodness " ? ^
^ Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God, 48- 2 A. Philip, The Father's Hand, 161. » IMd, 162.
PSALM XXI. 3 375
^ As I look back, and recall what is past — struggles which I have not chronicled here ; doubts and inward conflicts which may not be written ; hours of fierce anguish of spirit ; moments in hell too awful and too sacred to be recorded ; joys which, though brief, are yet joys for ever ; tearful times of sowing which have yielded happy harvests ; kindly teachings, both tender and severe, which experience has brought — I see life as education, wonderful and changeful, but full of a Divine purpose ; replete with interest, and slowly revealing that Love is its origin and Love its end. Oh, brother man, to whom life seems dark and its purpose undecipher- able, hold fast to the Loving Spirit ! It will guide you into the heart of things. It will so fashion you after its own likeness that, when you awake to life's true significance, you will be satisfied.^
(2) God is in front to assuage our sorrow. — There are trials and sorrows which come to all in course of nature, and in regard to which, unless men and women are very rebellious, it is possible perhaps to see no little mercy and goodness assuaging their bitter- ness all through. But those which come athwart the course of nature, as it were ; which no one could have foreseen, and nothing appears to justify; which only darken the world to men, and confound their judgment, and tempt their unbelief — what are we to say of these sorrows ? They are, alas ! not uncommon, and growing experience of life furnishes always fresh evidence of the forms they may take. Where men and women lie prostrate under them — their hearth perhaps left bare, the light of youthful promise perhaps quenched, perhaps worse sorrows still befalling them — what are you to expect them to feel and say in circum- stances like these ? Even if they believe, is it to be thought of that they are to look up to God and say, " These things too are good. Thou comest to meet me in them with the blessings of goodness " ? Yet I have known one whose worldly all was, in a quite unlooked-for hour, swept away from her, and who, after a single moment's pause, said : " The Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away ! Blessed be the name of the Lord ! " I have known another whose home was suddenly left desolate, and the cherished hopes of years, and the early blossom of their fulfilment strewed in ruins, and all he said was, " I needed this." And just the other day I heard of one struck down at the outset of a most promising