JEREMIAH xii. 5 51
God's grace I will contend even with horses ; and I will go to the pride of Jordan though the jungle growl and snarl." This was the result on Jeremiah, and it was the result required. Only a heroic soul could do the heroic work needed by Israel and by God, and it was the greatest heroism of all that was needed, the heroism of endurance.
^[ Nothing worth doing can be done in this world without something of that iron resolution. It is the spirit which never knows defeat, which cannot be worn out, which has taken its stand and refuses to move. This is the " patience " about which the Bible is full, not the sickly counterfeit which so often passes for patience, but the power to bear, to suffer, to sacrifice, to endure all things, to die, harder still sometimes to continue to live. The whole world teaches that patience. Life in her struggle with nature is lavish of her resources. She is willing to sacrifice any- thing for the bare maintenance of existence meanwhile. Inch by inch each advance has to be gained, fought for, paid for, kept. It is the lesson of all history also, both for the individual and for a body of men who have espoused any cause.1
TJ Would you grow a rose ? Then the sun's rays must be broken up and buried out of sight to rise again in new beauty of form and shade. Obtain a rose in any other way, and it is no rose but an artificiality without life or fragrance. Even so does the revealing of the glory of God carry with it a cosmic calvary in which we, His children, are individually called to share. This is as truly the nature of things in their highest computation as it is true of the simplest modes in which beauty and truth express themselves in our experience.2
(1) God puts first that which is less, and afterwards that which is greater. — He does not put us at once to contend with horses, but tests us first with footmen. He does not allow any one of us with frail and fainting courage to meet the overflowing floods of Jordan ; He causes us first to be tested in our homestead — the land of peace, where we are comparatively secure amidst those who know and love us. God graduates the trials of our life ; He allows the lesser to precede the greater. He gives us the oppor- tunity of learning to trust Him in slighter difficulties, that faith may become muscular and strong, and that we may be able to walk to Him amid the surge of the ocean. Be sure that whatever your sorrows and troubles are at this hour, God has allowed them 1 Hugh Black, Edinburgh Sermons, 272. 2 R. J. Campbell.
52 THE PRIDE OF JORDAN
to come to afford you an opportunity of preparation for future days.
■If Man's condition in the world presents an insoluble problem except upon one hypothesis. For he cannot help believing that he exists for a purpose. Every instinct of his nature compels him so to do. And yet when he looks round him for evidence of that purpose he is everywhere baffled and perplexed. He has capacities for pleasure, but they conduct him to pain. He desires know- ledge, but is limited to ignorance. And if he works for the im- provement of his race, his work is hampered on every side, while he sees the men most qualified for usefulness continually cut off in their prime. Neither pleasure nor knowledge nor achievement, then, can be the destined end of man upon earth. And if there is no further alternative, his instincts deceive him, and he exists in vain. But once adopt the hypothesis that the world is a school of character, and everything falls into its place in the scheme. He has pleasure enough, and knowledge enough, and achievement enough, here to suggest what possibilities hereafter may await him; while the pain and doubt and frustration that hinder his present progress may be fashioning his character for future use.
What if the breaks themselves should prove at last
The most consummate of contrivances
To train a man's eye, teach him what is faith.
Thus the only theory of the world which, as a rational hypothesis, seems tenable is the one that, on other grounds, the Christian believes to be true. And this coincidence of his belief with rational probability gives additional confidence to all his practice.1
(2) Victory over the lesser will ensure victory over the greater. — By the successful running with the footmen we shall be prepared for the severer contest with horses. Hence little trials borne well prophesy our bearing well such as may be greater, should God please to send them. And if, when entrusted with but a few things, we are found faithful in them, the Lord whom we serve is likely to make us " ruler over many things."
T| It is not uncommon for men to believe that they are able to bear great calamities better than they can bear small ones. They lose all patience with an attack of toothache, yet fancy that they could smilingly endure leprosy or consumption; they lose their temper with the silly oversights of domestics and workpeople, but they are sure that a crushing misfortune would evoke their