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turn out at the Last Day to have been the very hinges on which our lives turned, and that through them our Predestination has been worked out, and our Eternal Kest secured.1
IL
Rest.
" For thou shalt rest."
1. In the circumstances in which he was placed Daniel needed this word of comfort. He was made aware that the Church would pass through many trials and have a chequered history, before the glory of the latter day should be ushered in. He was led to believe that a long period would intervene between his own day and the end to which he was told to look forward. He could not be otherwise than full of anxiety regarding the future, and the promise of the text was given him for his consolation. He was to receive no further information as to the coming events, but he was assured that he need have no anxiety concerning his own safety, for he should rest and stand in his lot at the end of the days.
TJ Desire for rest is not at any time the mere desire for the cessation of fatigue ; all true rest means the consciousness of a growing renewal of the powers exhausted by fatigue, and the shrinking with which old age regards the heavy burdens of life is not in the least a quailing of the mind, but solely a yearning of the body for what it needs more and more every day, and yet gains less and less — true renovation. The desire for rest is the desire for more life, though in disguise, — the belief that more life is, under some great change of conditions, actually before us.2
2. The gospel holds out a present rest, real and wonderful, to men believing. There is rest, indeed, in receiving the reconcilia- tion, the redemption through Christ's blood, even the forgiveness of all trespasses. There is a rest also, that arises in the new order and harmony of the soul brought home to God. The believer in Christ has reached a foundation that cannot be shaken; he has
1 The Spirit of Father Faber (1914), 148.
3 R. H. Hutton, Criticisms on Contemporary Tlwught and Thinkers, ii. 142.
DANIEL xii. 13 28
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found a spring in which is resource enough for all service, and consolation enough against all sorrow. God is with him ; Christ is with him ; the Spirit of all grace is with him. Therefore there must be in his state an element of rest. This faith lies at the root of all that a believer is and does.
And so it comes to pass that, as the servants of God go through this world, whatever toil befalls them is in a very emphatic manner mingled with actual ministries of rest, imparted to them by their Lord. These fall in, in time of need, fitly and effectually; the heart is calmed and cheered, the feeling of strength and resource revives, the man draws breath and looks around, his courage rises to set forth again. Indeed, it is part of God's common bounty towards men; and men must take no common pains in sin, to deprive themselves of a large experience of it. No man runs the race of life all in one heat. There are innumerable breaks in life from which, in some sense, new beginnings offer themselves. Morning succeeds morning, and season follows season. And ever between come soothing influences that persuade the relentless past to relax its grasp a little, so that rest renews the man. Thus it is in human life generally. But in Christian life it takes place in a quite peculiar manner; for in Christian lives grace and providence join together to care for this interest of rest with a wise and loving completeness. A Christian may be exercised with hard and perplexing trial. But yet he must have, and he has, such a measure of rest mingled and infused as a Father sees to be most meet for him.
T| It is a good saying of Edgar Quinet, born of much trying experience, " The unknown very often saves us. It is probable that what one fears will not happen, and that we find blessings we never thought of." But that is only a fragment of that vaster faith which saintly souls have reached, souls that have penetrated life to its centre and found God there. Has any finer prescrip- tion for inner rest been given than this ? It is from the Imitatio, "When a man cometh to that estate that he seeketh not his comfort from any creature, then first doth God begin to be altogether sweet to him. Then shall he be contented with whatsoever doth befall him in this world. Then shall he neither rejoice in great matters, nor be sorrowful in small, but entirely and confidently committeth himself to God, who is unto him all in all."
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Assuredly there is the secret and the centre of rest. At home with God, we are at home in His world, in His universe. No part in it, no realities of it, will be to us strange or terrifying. Under all circumstances we shall discern His laws, which are His holy will. And they are all our friends. This central rest, which He invites us to, is the ground and condition of all fine achievement.1