Never I miss footing in the maze,
No, — I have light nor fear the dark at all.^
3. This figure of light sown implies something hidden and long waited for, yet certain at last ; even as the seed is buried in the soil, and " the husbandman hath long patience until he receive the early and the latter rain," and finally, the assured fruition of his labour. The sower does not doubt the harvest because he has to waijb weary months for it. He knows that in due season he shall reap if he faint not. And so the Psalmist would have us believe that the certainty of the coming light is as great as that of the present darkness, and that if our calamities are inevitable, our consolations are assured. " Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning."
The seed which is cast into the soil does not immediately yield the harvest. The waiting is the price we have to pay for the hundredfold increase. It cannot be reaped yet. But it is sown, and will yet grow and ripen. God's hand has prepared the soil and cast the seed, and His care and culture secure an abundant harvest. It is sown, and is growing under His eye. Those dark clouds that overshadow sometimes drop down fatness on it. Those storms that are so trying strengthen it. And God's love, like genial sunshine, is promoting its continual growth. It is sown, and will be reaped before long. Fear not ; rather look beyond.
Lift up thine eyes beyond the night
Of life's dark setting; blossoms of to-day
Shall break in flower to-morrow.
This year's light sucked into every spray
Is food for summer blossoms yet to be. * J. Flew, Studies in Browning, 7.
PSALM xcvii. II 275
^ The rays of the sun are streaming across ninety-six million miles of space every day in the year, and every hour in the day. Some of them are turned into planetary energy at once ; others pass down into darkness and silence in the earth and there remain ; or they may spring up immediately in the form of vegeta- tion, which by and by becomes a coal mine or a petroleum well. After the lapse of ages, it may be, that stored-up light, scattered so lavishly upon the earth's surface so long ago, is discovered and brought into use once more. We drive our looms and illuminate our houses with it. We call it by a variety of names, accord- ing to the service we manage to draw from it. In the form of electricity we make it flash our thoughts from continent to continent across intervening oceans. In another form, it will carry a floating city, like a modern mammoth Atlantic liner, from the old world to the new. In others, it shines forth as beauty and splendour in the complex and manifold achieve- ments of art and science. What untold wonders are being wrought every day by tl^e bringing forth of the stored-up light of the sun ! They constitute the harvest of that which was sown long before we who profit by the blessing were born to inherit it.^
4. God has sown His holy light in the field of His Word. The sacred writings are full of hidden light — the light of truth, holiness, and joy ; and this light the Holy Spirit shows to the devout and diligent student. Every gospel promise is a star, shining in the dark night of time ; and the Bible is a " book of stars." Light is sown also in the field of Divine Providence. Everything that God allows to happen to His people is right : this is so, even when darkness wraps them round for a season. " We know that all things work together for good to them that love God." And light is sown especially in the field of human hearts. The Spirit of God scatters in this soil seeds of living light — knowledge and purity and gladness. " The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meek- ness, temperance."
^ I have been deep in my study of the ways of God in heathen religions. The past of mankind does not now seem a black ocean covered with fog and storm, and wrecks drifting everywhere, but a long wake of light crosses it coming from the light that lighteth every uian in the world, the Pharos of humanity — the Spirit of
1 E. J. CampbeU.
276 LIGHT AND GLADNESS
God. In that gleam, the nations have steered their barks and made towards haven. He hath not left Himself without a
witness.^
^ I have been thinking especially of those prayers which are most legitimate and most surely answered — prayers for help to resist temptation, for strength in the performance of duty, for the lifting of despondency, and for all the way in which men are raised above themselves and out of weakness are made strong. In such cases as these it does not often liappen that the supplicant is conscious of any direct intervention of God. He will indeed rise from his knees in a calmer frame of mind ; the habit of prayer, and the trustfulness which goes with such a habit, cannot fail of their effect in quieting for the time the troubled spirit. The humble Christian does not look for more than this ; but he waits awhile, and the crisis passes. He does not know what has hap- pened ; but in some strange way the difficulties that seemed to beset him have vanished ; the problem that seemed so unmanage- able is solved ; the thing that seemed so impossible is done.^