^ J. B. Maclean, The Secret of the Stream, 145. 2 H. W. Mabie, The Life of the SpirU, 282.
64 ROOM TO LIVE
God and Man are free. Where Freedom is, no other cause is sure.
Is Purpose then Foreknowledge? — Human will
May yield and fail to win the victory :
And God Himself, it may be, turns and bends
His purposes to further human ends,
Stooping to serve His servant; so that still
We find no Purpose that is Prophecy.
But where both wills, the human and Divine
Are yoked together, where God ratifies
The struggling purposes of man, — there lies
The law unchangeable, the fixed decree
That nought in earth or heaven shall undermine.^
ii. Add Eternity to Life.
By bringing eternity into life we make it a large place. Everything we do has an effect, an effect upon ourselves, that is eternal. That is the recognition of eternity, and to bring this conception into life is to make it a very wide room. We find life small and tedious because the work we do seems so petty and ineffective. What we do to-day we have to do again to-morrow, still again the third day, and so continually. The baker bakes his bread, but to-morrow it is all eaten and he has to bake another batch, and day after day to go on baking. It seems hopeless to try to feed his customers. " My work is never done," we con- stantly hear. It is generally the housewife who says it. What is the use of cooking, sweeping, dusting and tidying, when to- morrow she has to cook, sweep, dust and tidy again, and all the to-morrows of her life to repeat the programme ? Our work seems so futile that the life spent in doing it appears petty, small, unworthy. Yes ; but it is so in appearance only. It is not really so. By our daily work we are manufacturing for eternity. We are making, or we are marring, characters that will last for ever. We are developing, or we are destroying, souls that will go on with this handiwork upon them into eternity. We are fitting, or we are unfitting, ourselves to dwell for ever in the holy light of God.
^ If this life is all, then the horizon is near, and the whole scope and outlook of man's highest life cramped and fettered. To
' Roger Heath, Beginnings, 66.
PSALM XXXI. 8 65
many a soul it would be a bondage almost as grim as the bondage of Egypt. " Mas'r," pleads Tom, the slave of Uncle Tom's Cabin, as he is threatened with death, " after ye've killed the body there ain't no more ye can do. You may whip me, starve me, burn me, it'll only send me sooner where I want to go." From the fire and water, the cruel terror of his fellow, this pure and beautiful soul was to pass to its vindication and eternal rest. We are always reaching our limits ; there are things we cannot do, id' als we cannot attain, powers we cannot conquer, service we cannot render, but with the breaking of the morning when the spirit enters the Homeland, then surely we must believe we shall see those limits crossed. We shall be in a wealthy place, there will be a fuller, richer life.^
'Tis a long road home ; But sleep for aching eyes,
Best for weary feet. For striving hearts a prize, Silence still and sweet, Wait at the end of the long road home.
'Tis a hard road home ; Many faint and lag
Beneath the heavy pack, With feet and hearts that drag, But none looks back — We know there's an end to the hard road home.
'Tis a dark road home.
With shadows long and deep, Where timid travellers fall, And scarce their path may keep; But the Light that shines for all Gleams at the end of the dark road home.
1 C. F. Perry.
PS. XXV.-CXIX.
The Beatitude of Forgiveness.
Literature.
Adams (J.), Sermons in Syntax, 45.
Dunbar (J. W.), The Beatitudes of the Old Testament; 129.
Kel)le (J.), Sermons for the Christian Year : Lent to Passiontide, 260.
Mackay (J. J.), Becent Letters of Christ, 124.
Meyer (F. B.), The Directory of the Devout Life, 15.
Price (A. C), Fifty Sermons, i. 345.
Ritchie (A.), Sermons from St. Ignatius^ Pulpit, 42.
Sniellie (A,), In the Hour of Silence, 303.
Wilmot-Buxton (H. J.), In Many Keys, 102.
Children's Pulpit : Second Sunday after Christmas, ii. 204.
Church of England Pulpit, xxviii. 301.
Church Year Book, 1912, p. 49.
The Beatitude of Forgiveness.
Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, And in whose spirit there is no guile. — Ps. xxxii. i, 2.
These words form the preface to a psalm generally understood to have been written in connexion with the great sin of David's life. It sings of that happy time when he had repented of his iniquity, when he had sought mercy and had found it, and then poured out the joy of his heart. It is no marvel that his pent-up feelings burst forth in such words as these, for the experience through which he had passed had been peculiarly dark and bitter. He tells here of the misery which he had undergone. He had kept silence, he says, with the result that his very bones had waxed old, and his moisture had been turned into the drought of summer. He would not confess, he would not repent. To a man with the open nature of David that would mean unspeakable wretchedness, but he persevered in it month after month till the mission of Nathan the prophet broke through his sulky reserve, and let loose the springs of his being. And then how measureless his peace and joy ! Probably no man has ever felt more deeply than he the blessing of forgiveness. He entered into a new world, and being a poet he could not refrain from giving expression to his bliss in this beautiful poem, which begins with the outburst, "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered."