DANIEL xii. 13 289
The true question to ask is this, " Has it helped any human soul ? " — Signor's own word — and he continued : " It is said of literature, but is equally applicable to art. I think the great sculptor of the Parthenon must have done so. Gothic cathedrals certainly have. Yet these which conferred actual and immortal life were, to the masses of the nation intent upon eating, drinking, fighting, and getting rich, but vague and visionary complements to the more material and important considerations of everyday life. Paradox as it may seem to be, it is safe to assert that the most visionary manifestations of human activity have ever proved to be the most solidly based, and are the most permanent."1
1 George Frederic Watts, ii. 275.
JER.-MAL. — 19
The Valley of Achor.
Literature.
Burrell (D. J.), The Unaccountable Man, 191.
Clifford (J.), The Gospel of Gladness, 28.
Connell (A.), The Endless Quest, 102.
Dick (G. H.), The Yoke and the Anointing, 102.
Dykes (J. 0.), Plain Words on Great Tliemes, 59.
Gray (W. A.), The Shadow of the Hand, 320.
Henson (P. S.), The Four Faces, 151.
Huntington (F. D.), Christ in the Christian Year: Trinity to Advent, 187.
Kelinan (J.), Redeeming Judgment, 123.
Maclaren (A.), Expositions : Ezekiel to Malachi, 94.
Meyer (F. B.), Future Tenses, 69.
Neale (J. M.), Sermons Preached in Sackville College Cliapel, iii. 337.
Price (A. C), Fifty Sermons, ii. 369.
Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xlvii. (1901), No. 2750.
Stuart (A. M.), The Path of the Redeemed, 87.
Watkinson (W. L.), The Ashes of Roses, 98.
Welldon (J. E. C), Youth and Duty, 195.
Wilkes (H.), The Bright and Morning Star, 74.
Williams (T. R.), The Evangel of the New Theology, 243.
Christian Treasury, xii. (1856) 61 (W. Jay) ; xxii. (1866) 277 (J. Milne).
393
The Valley of Achor.
And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope.— Hos. ii. 15.
The Prophet Hosea is remarkable for the frequent use which he makes of events in the former history of his people. Their past seems to him a mirror in which they may read their future. He believes that that " which is to be hath already been," the great principles of the Divine government living on through all the ages, and issuing in similar acts when the circumstances are similar. So he foretells that there will yet be once more a captivity and a bondage, that the old story of the wilderness will be repeated once more. In that wilderness God will speak to the heart of Israel. Its barrenness will be changed into the fruitful- ness of vineyards, where the purpling clusters hang ripe for the thirsty travellers. And not only will the sorrows that He sends thus become sources of refreshment, but the gloomy gorge through which they journey — the valley of Achor — will be a door of hope. One of the psalms gives us, in different form, a metaphor and a promise substantially the same as that of this text. " Blessed are they who, passing through the valley of Weeping, make it a well." They gather their tears, as it were, into the cisterns by the wayside, and draw refreshment and strength from their very sorrows, and then, when in their wise husbandry they have thus irrigated the soil with the gathered results of their sorrows, the heavens bend over them, and weep their gracious tears, and " the rain also covereth it with blessings."
I.
The Valley of Promise.
The valley of Achor was to the Israelites the key to the possession of Palestine. It was a valley lying to the north of
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Jericho, between it and the highlands beyond. It was the first land upon which the Israelites entered after they crossed the Jordan, and the walls of Jericho fell flat to the ground. Hard by the city of palm trees was the fertile valley of Achor. If ever the Israelites in captivity were to go back again, they must enter Palestine by the same door if they crossed the Jordan at all ; the key of the position was the valley of Achor, the first region of which they would have to take possession if they wished to win the rest of the land.
Such was its physical formation that in a most literal sense the valley of Achor was a door of hope, for in front of the Israelites, as they wound through the pass, there lay at the far end of the vista the smiling vineyards and yellow cornfields and peace- ful blue hills of the Promised Land. So does the Kedeemer lead those to whose hearts He has spoken, assuring them of reconcilia- tion and peace with Himself. Every winding in the avenue of life reveals a blessing that is richer than the blessings they at present enjoy. They are lured from grace unto grace, and from strength unto strength. Mercy joins hand with mercy. Each good thing received becomes the pledge and the fore- taste of a better which God hath prepared for as many as love Him.
Tj There was an old English custom by which a man took possession of an estate " by turf and twig." A sod of the turf and a twig from a tree were given to him. This was a token that the whole estate, with everything which grew upon it, was his property. And so, when Jesus whispered into your ear, and gave you the assurance of reconciliation with the Father, and fellowship with Himself, He did, as it were, give you the whole land of promise. The richest enjoyment of the believer is yours. You have the foretaste, and that is the pledge that you shall yet enter into the possession of the whole. However great the promise, however rich may be its treasure, it is all yours. You have not yet fed upon the clusters of its vineyards, but it is all yours ; because, in taking possession of your first enjoyment, you have virtually claimed the whole. It was said of William the Conqueror, when he landed here, that he stumbled; but, clutching a handful of earth, he hailed it as a happy omen, saying that, in taking possession of that handful of earth, he had taken all England for his own. And you, who, on your bended knees fell prostrate before God in that first rich treasure of joy which came into your