^ As one contemplates Mr. Gladstone's triumphs, one finds oneself recurring in memory to the beautiful background of domestic quiet and stately dignity in which he was as much or more at home than in the public gaze. 1 can see him now in an old wideawake and cloak — trudging off in the drizzle of an October morning to an early service. I remember how, at Hawarden in 1896, on one of the sad evenings after my father's death, I dined alone with him and one other guest, and with what beautiful consideration he talked quietly on about things in which he thought we should be interested — things that needed neither comment nor response, and all so naturally and easily, that one hardly realized the tender though tfulness of it all. And last of all, I remember how I came one evening at a later date to dine at Hawarden, and was shown into a little half-lit ante-room next the dining-room. He was just at the beginning of his last illness, and he was suffering from discomfort and weakness. There on a sofa he sat, side by side with Mrs. Gladstone; they were sitting in silence, hand in hand, like two children, the old warrior and his devoted wife. It seemed almost too sacred a thing to have seen ; but it is not too sacred to record, for it seemed the one last perfect trans- figuring touch of love and home.^
11.
God our Home.
Moses was a homeless man. Early in life he had fled from Pharaoh's court, where he had been brought up. When he lived in Midian as the son-in-law of Jethro, he took part in the wandering life of the desert tribes. When he was called upon to deliver the children of Israel from Egypt, and to be their
1 The Life of ffenry J. Pope, by his Son, 174. ^ A. C. Beusoii, Along tlie Road, 53.
2i8 THE HOME OF THE SOUL
leader and lawgiver, he shared their wanderings for forty years in the great and terrible wilderness, where they had no fixed abode. In all their journeys they had before them the prospect of Canaan, the good land which God was to give them tor a possession. But Moses was not permitted to enter upon that goodly inheritance. He was to see it from afar from Mount Pisgah, but he was to die in the wilderness, where " no man kno-weth of his sepulchre unto this day." And so the old man, who knew no home or lasting abode on earth, finds his home and refuge in Him. He contrasts the eternity and unchangeableness of God with the transitory and fleeting circumstances of man. Thinking of the past generations, he remembered what God was to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, when they had no fixed abode, but confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on earth. And looking to future generations he discerned beyond the earthly Canaan the city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. And so, for the homeless man and the homeless people, faith beheld the promise of a dwelling-place, a home, in the Lord.
Nay, by no cumulative changeful years,
For all our bitter harv^esting of tears,
Shalt thou tame man, nor in his breast destroy
The longing for his home which deadens joy.
Not blindly in such moments, not in vain,
The open secret flashes on the brain,
As if one almost guessed it, almost knew
Whence we have sailed and voyage whereunto;
Not vainly, for albeit that hour goes by,
And the strange letters perish from the sky,
Yet learn we that a life to us is given
One with the cosmic spectacles of heaven, —
Feel the still soul, for all her questionings,
Parcel and part of sempiternal things ;
For us, for all, one overarching dome.
One law the order, and one God the home.*
1. God is the natural home of the soul. In that home it was
born, from that great Father our spirits came, " trailing clouds of
glory from God, who is our home." To live and dwell in Him,
nurtured by His care, fed by His bounty, watched by His grace,
1 F. W. H. Myers, Tlue Renewal of Youth.
PSALM xc. I 219
guarded by His mercy ; to be brought up and kept in His love, and to love Him with our heart and soul, and there and then to find all peace, rest, and blessedness — that is our purpose and our destiny, that the design and blessedness of our existence. And only in Him do we find what we require — protection against temptation, shelter from trials, and refuge from calamity, light in the midst of darkness, warmth to cheer our dulled and deadened hearts, release from the burden of sin, deliverance from the power of passion, food for our hunger, safety from every evil, and rest, quiet, peaceful rest, to our agitated and worn hearts.
^ When we have been long in a foreign land, associating with strangers or casual acquaintances who have little interest in us, and no love for us ; if we have been ill, far away from home and friends, and have had no friendly faces to smile on us, and no sweet, tender sympathy to soothe us, how gladsome it is, after such an experience, to leave that land of exile and strangeness and to sail for home, where we know —