^ Easter Day, xix.
ISAIAH 175
dragged out at once, and I had to dig holes and bury them a foot under the sand-heaps. By sunset the gale went down, and we had a peaceful evening.^
IT A tourist was being conducted through the railway tunnel under the Severn. A bell tinkled — that was a train from the Welsh side. Another bell rang out — that was a train from the English side. The tourist was anxious about his safety. " Come this way," said his guide. A few steps took them to a cleft in the rock, where they found shelter till the trains dashed by.^
2. A true man is one who defends and shelters the storm- tossed from the exposed places on the plains of human life. There are fierce and frivolous winds sweeping across many and many a life, often to the upturning of its roots, and overthrowing of its moral foundations. There are thousands of our brethren who are swept by the cruel winds, and the true man is one who, when he finds such, goes and stands between his brother and the wind, taking the windy side of the road, defending his brother, and affording him a cover to the winds.
1[ A Sunday-school teacher once went to pay a visit of condolence to the mother of one of her scholars, who had lost her husband. The man had been a cripple, unable to do much work, and unwill- ing to do the little work he was fit for. But the widow missed him, and in response to words of sympathy said, " Yes, ma'am, it's a poor door that does not keep off some of the wind."
2. Tempests of rain — " a covert from the tempest." This is the meaning of the word " tempest " here — a sudden flood of rain. It is the " showers of the mountains »" which Job speaks of (xxiv. 8). It is the " flood " with which God carries men away (Ps. xc. 5). It is the " tempest of waters " which " passed by " when the Lord appeared in His majesty (Hab. iii. 10). If As we neared Bethany a new experience overtook us. It became bitterly cold, and presently down came a sudden rain, straight, violent, and icy. It was something of a surprise, for I had never associated that kind of rain with Bible countries. The abundant tropical rain one had of course heard of, but I had always imagined it warm and fruitful ; here, however, was a cruel down- pour, as spiteful as any experience in our northern climate. And yet it ought not to have been surprising at an elevation of some- thing like 2500 feet above the sea. Moreover, out of some seventy or eighty Bible references to the rain, although the great majority
^ W. M. Flinders Petrie, Researches in Sinai, p. 29. * A. Aitken, in The Churchman's PvZpit, pt. 77, p. 32.
176 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
speak of the rain as an unmitigated blessing, we have the other side too : in the Book of Ezra, " the people sat trembling for the great rain," and in Ezekiel the Lord threatens to rain in the land of Israel with " an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire, and brimstone."^
IF A wild storm was raging round a prairie home one night. The windows were blown in, and no lights could be kept burning. It was only with difficulty that the doors could be braced against the blast. The father was away from home, and the mother, grand- mother, and three children sat in the darkness in a room on the sheltered side of the house, fearing that at any moment it might be swept from its foundations by the force of the wind. Suddenly, ' eleven-year-old Walter was missed. He had been holding a whis- pered conversation with his grandmother only a few moments before. Frantic with fear, the mother called him at the top of her voice, and receiving no reply, started to grope her way through the darkness of the house. She found the missing boy in bed, fast asleep. And when she asked him how he could go to sleep when they were all in danger of death, he sleepily replied, " Why, grandmother told me God would take care of us, so I thought I might as well go to bed again."
3. Drought. Every one has heard of the tragedies of thirst in desert places, but the significance of water needs to be seen and felt before it can be realised. When the way is long between the wells, the horses, when the halting-place comes at last in sight, press forward with pricked-up ears, and, forget- ting their weariness, are with difficulty kept from a gallop. Camels go waterless for days, and it is strange to see them con- tentedly move out to graze when relieved of the tins of water they have carried, for which all the other beasts are crying out. The mules suffer most, and on one occasion we lost one after two days upon short allowance. The poor beast had shown no sign of flagging, and indeed had carried his burden friskily, but when his day's work was over and he had reached the camp, he lay down immediately on his back and died. Every one in the camp felt a kind of awe, beyond the keen sense of pity for the faithful brute. The significance of water in the desert is so immediate and so fateful, and the difference between a mouthful and the want of it is the difference between life and death. But the tragedy is far more appalling when the sufferer is a fellow-man.