I heard a Saint cry to the Sun — " Be dim. Why shouldst thou rule on high with boastful ray, Till fools adore thee as the God of Day, Bobbing thy Master's honour due to Him ? " But the sun-spirit, thro' each raaiant limb Translucent as a living ember coal. Glowed. At the anger of the seraph soul His golden orb trembled from boss to rim.
Tlien made he answer as a dove that sings, " God's glory is my glory, and my praise Only His praising. They, who kneel to me, See thro' the waving of my orient wings A choir of stars with voices like the sea, Singing hosauna in the heavenly ways."^
1 A. F. Kirkpatrick, The Book of Psalms, 509.
» Lord Rosebery, Napoleon : The Last Phase, 171. * Lord De Tabley.
PSALM Lxxxiv. II 199
God is a Sun.
1. The sun is the centre of power in the system where it stands. There is nothing that can hold out against it. All planets are obliged to own their allegiance to it. They march to its music. They cannot wander or get out of the path which its power prescribes for them. The sun is the governor of the planetary kingdom — central, uncontradicted, un wasting, unex- hausted and inexhaustible, steadfast, going forth for ever and for ever. So there is a sublime centre in that higher creation, in conscious human life. In the realm of intelligence, in the realm of righteousness or morality, in the great superior realm of mind, there is a central power. Amidst all the apparent detonations and explosions and miscarriages of minor human life upon this sphere there is, nevertheless, a great central influence that is holding mankind to their career, to their general orbit. The government of God in its extensiveness, in its patient persever- ance, in its power universal, could not be more fitly represented than by this symbolization of the sun itself. The universality of God — "omnipresence," as it is called — is a thing somewhat difficult to be understood, as all things that reach toward or are born of the infinite are to finite intelligence ; nevertheless, the outreachiug of the sun is everywhere. Both of the poles recognize its presence. The equator never abandons the light and warmth of the sun. Wherever the earth and all its luminaries may travel, and wherever the satellites of the sun may go, there is its power. There is no thunder, no utterance in it. It is silent, but it is there.
^ Fenelon had many friends affectionately attached to him, in Versailles, Paris, and other parts of France ; but in his banishment he saw them but very seldom. Many of them were persons of eminent piety. " Let us all dwell," he says in one of his letters, " in our only Centre, where we continually meet, and are all one and the same thing. We are very near, though we see not one another; whereas others, who even live in the same house, yet live at a great distance. God reunites all, and brings together the remotest points of distance in the hearts that are united to Him.
200 A SUN AND A SHIELD
I am for nothing but unity; that unity which binds all the parts Id the ceiure. Thai which is not in unity is in sepuratiun; and separation implies a plurality of interests, self in each too much fomlled. Wlien self is destroyed, the soul reunites in God; those who are united in Gnd are not far from each other. This is the ( onsolutiiin winch I have in your absence, and which enables me to bear this attliction patiently, however long it may continue."^
2. Another idea is sugLiested by the sun. Many of us have been oppressed by the thonglit of a distant God ; we sometimes bave thought of Him as far away, as having His throne in the remote heaven of heavens. But if the sun can have its being ninety million miles away, and yet can fall with such power as to heat a continent, and with such exquisite nicety as to make the rosebud redden, why should it seem a thing incredible to us that the Creator who fashioned that glorious lamp should dwell apart immeasurably far, yet touch and turn and bless and save humanity ? He takes up tbe isles as a very little thing — the nations before Him are as nothing. Yet He knows the way that 1 take ; He understands my thought ; He will not quench the smoking flax nor break the bruised reed. Powerful, yet very far away ; thoughtful and tender, though hidden in the distance.
*[j God is the God of all, and yet He is my God. At the same moment He pervades heaven and earth, takes charge of the sustenance, progress, and growing happiness of the unbounded creation, and He is present with me, as intent upon my character, actions, wants, trials, joys, and hopes, as if I were the sole object of His love.2
3. God is a sun : that is infinity of blessing. No man among us can conceive the measure of the light and heat of the sun. They are beyond conception great. Light and heat have been continually streaming forth throughout many ages, yet all that has come forth of it is far less than that which still remains. For all practical purposes the light and heat of the sun are infinite ; and certainly in God all blessedness is absolutely infinite. There is no measuring it. We are lost. We can only say, " Oh, the depths of the love and goodness of God ! " In being heirs of God we possess all in all. There is no bound to our blessedness in God. Further, if God be called a sun, it is to let us know