4. Lastly, there is the sorrow of disappointment. All earnest labourers are liable to fits of despondency. Christian labourers certainly not less than others. Overwork, perhaps, is followed by reaction, or the too eager hope is disappointed because we do not see any results for all our doing. We think that our fellow- labourers are not as earnest as we, that we alone are bearing the burden and heat of the day. Then there comes up the question. What is the use of all our toil ? the murmur, " Verily I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought, and in vain." The whole world seems weary ; all effort appears but restlessness ; there is no profit to all the labour that is done under the sun. One generation passeth away and another cometh; life is too short for hope, too short for any effective effort. " The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down " ; " all the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full " ; " all things are full of labour ; man cannot utter it ; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. The tiling that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun."
1 p.. W. Barbour, Thoughts, 86.
PSALM cxxvi. 6 Sy
We pass; the path that each man trod Is dim, or will be dim, with weeds: What fame is left for human deeds
In endless age ?
Therefore we hate life ; " because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto " us ; " for all is vanity and vexation of spirit." Yet for all our despondency, the call to labour ceases not. If we would not be faithless to all we have known of duty and of God ; if we would not be false to all we have learnt of life, and to every principle by which our souls are moulded, we must do the work that lies ready to our hands. We have taken up the basket, and the furrows are still yawning to receive the seed : we must sow, though we sow in despondency and in tears. God's great call to us is to labour, and His call to labour continues though there is no joy to us in working. But it is still God's call, and not our gladness, that is to give character to our lives ; the claim of duty ceases not with our impulses of joyful work.
^ Lessons of persevering toil, of contented doing of preparatory work, of confidence that no such labour can fail to be profitable to the doer and to the world, have been drawn for centuries from the sweet words of this psalm. Who can tell how many hearts they have braced, how much patient toil they have inspired ? The Psalmist was sowing seed the fruit of which he little dreamed of when he wrote them, and his sheaves will be an exceeding weight indeed. The text gives assurance fitted to animate to toil in the face of dangers without, and in spite of a heavy heart — namely, that no seed sown and watered with tears is lost ; and further, that, though it often seems to be the law for earth that one soweth and another reapeth, in deepest truth "every man shall receive his own reward, according to his own labour," inas- much as, hereafter, if not now, whatsoever of faith and toil and holy endeavour a man soweth, trusting to God to bless the spring- ing thereof, that shall he also reap. In the highest sense and in the last result the prophet's great words are ever true : " They shall not plant, and another eat ... for my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands." ^
^ I saw in seedtime a husbandman at plough in a very raining day ; asking him the reason why he would not rather leave off * A. Maclaren, The Book of Psalms, 321,
88 SOWING IN TEARS, REAPING IN JOY
than labour in such foul weather, his answer was returned to me in their country rhyme :
Sow beans in the mud,
And they'll come up like a wood.
This could not but mind me of David's expression, " They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him." These last five years have been a wet and woful seedtime to me, and many of my afflicted brethren.. Little hope have we, as yet, to come again to our own homes, and, in a literal sense, now to bring our sheaves, which we see others daily carry away on their shoulders. But if we shall not share in the former or latter harvest here on earth, the third and last in heaven we hope undoubtedly to receive.^
Sow; — while the seeds are lying
In the warm earth's bosom deep,
And your warm tears fall upon it — •• They will stir in their quiet sleep;
And the green blades rise the quicker, Perchance, for the tears you weep.
Then sow; — for the hours are fleeting. And the seed must fall to-day;