III.
The Supplanter of Sorrow.
1. "Joy Cometh in the morning." There are two figures presented~"before us, the dark-robed and the bright-garmented. The one is the guest of the night, the other is the guest of the morning. The verb which occurs in the first clause of the second half of the text is not repeated in the second, and so the words may be taken in two ways. They may either express how Joy, the morning guest, comes, and turns out the evening visitant, or they may suggest how we took Sorrow in when the night fell, to sit by the fireside, but when morning dawned — who is this sitting in her place, smiling as we look at her ? It is Sorrow transfigured, and her name is changed into Joy. Either the substitution or the transformation may be supposed to be in the Psalmist's mind. Both are true.
^ Does not the whole teaching of the Cross say that sorrow and pain alone wake us up to reality, and that trial is a truer refiner of character than pleasure ? Of course, this is not our first impression ; it needs a revelation to tell it, or at all events to interpret our own experience. You have a proof of that in a
' A. Maclaren, The Wearied Christ, 243.
* Sir Edward Cook, The Life of Florence Nightingale, i. 58.
48 THE TRANSIENCE OF SORROW
child's wonder at the expression, " Blessed are they that mourn " ; for how should a hapj)y, careless child diviue such a mystery ? Life alone can apply the meaning of these words of Christ, or explain how true they are ; for, indeed, they are only subjectively true, deriving their truth not from sorrow and pain in themselves, but from the tempers on which they fall ; so that they are not true always — to some never true. Yet how deep they are, and how such convictions alone can make this life intelligible or tolerable ! That is a blessed faith which feels that there cannot be clouds and gloom for ever — which, ever resting in conviction of what God is, hopes and knows that "joy cometh in the morning." ^
Say not that darkness is the doom of light. That every sun must sink in night's abyss, While every golden day declines to this,
To die and pass at evening out of sight.
Say rather that the morning ends the night,
That death must die beneath the dayspring's kiss — Whilst dawn the powers of darkness shall dismiss,
And put their dusky armaments to flight.
Man measures life in this wise ; first the morn, And secondly the noontide's perfect prime. And lastly night, when all things fade away :
But God, ere yet the sons of men were born, Showed forth a better way of marking time — "The evening and the morning were the day."'
2. We can anticipate the morning even in our night of sorrow. Even in the midst of the snow and cold and darkness of Arctic regions, the explorers build houses for themselves of the very blocks of ice, and within are warmth and light and comfort and vitality, while around is a dreary waste. There may be two currents in the great ocean ; a cold one may set from the Pole and threaten to chill and freeze all life out, but from the Equator there will be a warm one which will more than counterbalance the inrush of the cold. And so it is possible for us, even when things about us are dark and gloomy, and flesh and natural sensibilities all proclaim to us the necessity of sadness — it is possible for us to be aware of a central blessedness, not boisterous, but so grave and calm that the world cannot discriminate between it and sadness, which yet its possessors know to be blessedness
» Life and Letters of the Rev. F. W. Robertson, 281.
2 Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler, Verses, Wise or Otherwise, 200.
PSALM XXX. 5 49
unmingled. Left alone, we may have a companion ; in our ignorance we may be enlightened ; and in the murkiest night of our sorrow we may have, burning cheerily within our hearts, a light unquenchable.
^ A traveller entered Milan Cathedral at the dawn of day. The sunbeams fell on the eastern windows. Every pane of glass revealed its beauty. The images of apostle, prophet, angel, and Christ were seen in all their glory. The sun swept on to his zenith and then drove his chariot behind the western Alps. As he did so he flung his beams upon the western windows of the great shrine. Then the glories they contained appeared. Not a figure remained without its light. All the richness of colour and symbolism appeared. So the passing of time and the shining of the consolations of faith into a life transform sorrow into joy and gloom into glory.^
Oh, deem not they are blest alone Whose lives a peaceful tenor keep ;
The Power who pities man, hath shown A blessing for the eyes that weep.
The light of smiles shall fill again The lids that overflow with tears;
And weary hours of woe and pain Are promises of happier years.
There is a day of sunny rest
For every dark and troubled night: