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place, between him and his occupation, there is a gulf of dispro- portion. He is subjected to these alternations, and yet bears within him a repressed but immortal consciousness that he belongs to another order of things, which knows no ^'icissitude and fears no decay. He possesses stifled and misinterpreted longings — which, however starved, do yet survive — after unchanging Being and Eternal Eest. And thus endowed, and by contrast thus situated, his soul is full of the " blank misgivings of a creature moving about in worlds not realized."
This creature with eternity in his heart, where is he set? What has he got to work upon ? What has he to love and hold by, to trust to, and anchor his life on ? A crowd of things, each well enough, but each having a time; and though they be beautiful in their time, yet fading and vanishing when it has elapsed. No multiplication of thnes will make eternity. And so, with that thought in his heart, man is driven out among objects perfectly insufficient to meet it.
^ A great botanist made what he called " a floral clock " to mark the hours of the day by the opening and closing of flowers. It was a graceful and yet a pathetic thought. One after another they spread their petals, and their varying colours glow in the light. But one after another they wearily shut their cups, and the night falls, and the latest of them folds itself together and all are hidden away in the dark. So our joys and treasures — were they sufficient did they last — cannot last. After a summer's day comes a summer's night, and after a brief space of them comes winter, when all are killed and the leafless trees stand silent.
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.^
2. We may be sure that this contrast between our nature and the world in which we are set is not in vain. We are better for having these cravings in our heart, which can never be satisfied here. Were we without them, we should sink to the level of creation. We sometimes say half sadly, half in jest, that we envy the peaceful contented lives of the lower animals. But we do not mean what we say. We would rather have our human life, with its hopes and fears, its pathetic yearnings, its storms and its calms, its immortal outlook, than a life without cares and without hopes
' A. Maclaren.
ECCLESIASTES iii. it ^'j-^,
beyond those of the present moment. Picture some tropical forest, where animal and vegetable life luxuriates to the full, and where the swarms exuberant of life know no discontent. Would you give up your high though unsatisfied yearnings for bright but unreasoning life like theirs ? Or when, in spring, you wander through the fields, burdened with cares and doubts and fears about the future, while the birds, in utter freedom from care, are filling the air with song, would you exchange with them, and part with your hopes of an endless life, your longings for the Father in heaven ? Why, just to ask the question gives it its answer.
^ When Alexander of Macedon, after he had subjugated the whole of the known world, shed tears that his conquests were over because there was nothing left for him to conquer, however much we may disapprove of the ambition to which he had surrendered his life, yet we admire him more than if he had sat down in selfish ease to enjoy himself for the rest of his days. The soul that aspires is nearer to God than the soul that is content and still. Or if we meet with one who cares for nothing higher than the worldly wealth and ease and pleasure he enjoys, would you change your noble discontent for his ignoble content with what " perishes in the using " ? When we think of the future which lies before each one of us, we shall regard it as a crowning mercy and blessing, that, though at present God does not bestow the life we crave. He does give us longings for it, and refuses to let us forget it, since even in time "he has set eternity in our heart." It is this that keeps us from utter degradation ; without it how base we should be.^
3. This universal presentiment itself goes far to establish the reality of the unseen order of things to which it is directed. The great planet that moves in the outmost circle of our system was discovered because that next it wavered in its course in a fashion which was inexplicable, unless some unknown mass was attracting it from across millions of miles of darkling space. And there are " perturbations " in our spirits which cannot be understood, unless from them we may divine that far-off and unseen world which has power from afar to sway in their orbits the little lives of mortal men. It draws us to itself — but, alas, the attraction may be resisted and thwarted. The dead mass of the planet bends to the drawing, but we can repel the constraint which the eternal
* Memorials of R. T. Cunningham, 96.
374 ETERNITY IN THE HEART
world would exercise upon us ; and so that consciousness which ought to be our nobleness, as it is our prerogative, may become our shame, our misery and our sin.