One in a vision saw a woman fair; In her left hand a water jar she bare,
And in her right a burning torch she held That shed around a fierce and ruddy glare.
' R. F. Horton.
2o8 THE BEGINNING OF WISDOM
Sternly she said, " With fire I will burn down The halls of Heaven ; with water I will drown
The fires of Hell, — that all men may be good From love, not fear, nor hope of starry crown.
The fear of punishment, the lust of pay, With Heaven and Hell shall also pass away,
And righteousness alone shall fill each heart With the glad splendour of its shining ray."
Such is the Hindoo legend quaintly told In Bernard Picart's famous folio old ;
And 'neath this symbol ethnical, we may A moral for the present time behold.
When fear of punishment and greed of pay Shall faint and die in Love's serener day,
Then shall the Kingdom of the Lord arrive And earth become the Heaven for which we pray.'
» W. E. A. Axon.
Trust in the Lord.
PS. CXIX.-SONG OF SOL — 14
Literature.
Buckland (A. E.), Text Studies for a Year, 53.
Church (R. W.), Fillage Sermons, i. 172.
Howatt (J. R.), The Children's Angel, 104.
Liddon (H. P.), University Sermons, i. 139.
McCheyne (R. M.), Additional Remains, 142.
Rowlands (D.), in Comradeship and Character, 237.
Stalker (J.), The New Song, 118.
Talmage (T. de W.), Sermons, vii. 176.
Voysey (C), Sermons, xxvii. (1904), No. 7.
Christian World Pulpit, vii. 405 (F. Wagstatt) ; xvii. 324 (J. M. Charlton).
Church oj England Magazine, xxxi. 128 (W. T. Veruon).
Trust in the Lord.
Trust in the Lord with all thine heart,
And lean not upon thine own understanding :
In all thy ways acknowledge him,
And he shall direct thy paths.— Prov. iii. 5, 6.
There are two ways in which people pass through life. They pass through it remembering God, or they pass through it for- getting Him. They go through it with Him in their minds, though they cannot see Him ; or they go through it as if they had nothing to do with Him. They live as if this world were all they had to think about, or they remember that another life is coming, though they know they have to die in this world. And, of course, in what they do, this great difference shows itself. If people have not God and eternity in their thoughts, how is it possible that they should do anything as if they had ? How can they try to please God, whom they never think of ? And how can they give themselves any trouble to be prepared for eternity, when eternity is nothing but a mere word and sound to them, meaning nothing? But if they really have the greatness and mercy and judgment of God continually in their minds, they must either be openly rebelling against the light, or else they cannot help shaping their lives by the awful truths they believe, and living as those who must soon pass away from here to meet the Judge and Saviour of the quick and the dead. Either they are wise in their own eyes — that is, they trust themselves and the present world for everything they wish and work for, and feel no want of God, nor care for what He promises — or they acknowledge Him in all their ways ; they think of His eye. His will. His hand, to uphold or cast down, to guide or to chastise, in all that they undertake through their life. Either they " lean upon their own understanding " ; they are satisfied with what they see and have learnt about the ways and wisdom and good things of this present
212 TRUST IN THE LORD
world, and will not listen even to God, when He tells them a different story about what men think so much of here ; or they trust in the Lord with all their heart, knowing that " it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps," and that it would profit a man nothing if he were to " gain the whole world, and lose his own soul."
I.
A Prohibition.
"Lean not upon thine own understanding."
1. These words presuppose the existence of sin, of actual dis- order, of want of harmony between fallen man and the moral universe. Were it not so, they could have neither meaning nor propriety, and would certainly never have been written. To write the former part, " Trust in the Lord," would have been unnecessary ; to write the latter, " Lean not upon thine own understanding," would have been improper. It is quite natural for a sinless being to lean upon his own understanding; it is indeed a positive virtue in him to do so ; it is, in fact, but one form of trusting in God. For who gave us our understanding ? Who endowed us in the beginning with the light of reason ? Who conferred upon us those intellectual faculties which make us differ from the brute creation ? " It is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves ; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture." H^ gave us understanding for a purpose: that it might be our unfailing guide throughout the journey of life. To doubt the credibility of the understanding — the understanding unadulterated by sin — would therefore be a reflection upon God's wisdom and goodness. The understanding in man is analogous to instinct in inferior animals. In following ibstinct, the animal obeys God ; for instinct is God's law implanted in its nature, and compliance with it is invariably attended with beneficial results. To man, however, in his present state — sinful, polluted, degraded as he is — no advice can be more appropriate than this : " Lean not upon thine own understanding."